


UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



AN APPROACH TO THE SYNTHETIC 

STUDY OF INTEREST IN 

EDUCATION 



BY 
DOUGLAS WAPLES 



A THESIS 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN 

PARTML FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



REPRINTED PROM 

THE JOURNAL OP EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 

WARWICK & YORK. PUBLISHER 

BALTC. MD. 

1921 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



AN APPROACH TO THE SYNTHETIC 

STUDY OF INTEREST IN 

EDUCATION 



BY 

DOUGLAS WAPLES 



A THESIS 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN 

PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



REPRINTED FROM 

THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 

WARWICK & YORK. PUBLISHER 

BALTO., MD. 

1921 



I. 



1i> 



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.V^i^ 



f£ii 2 1922 



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AN APPROACH TO THE SYNTHETIC STUDY 
OF INTEREST IN EDUCATION: PART I 

DOUGLAS WAPLES 

Tufts College 

Chapter One. Introductory 

The difficulty encountered in the attempt to isolate any educa- 
tional topic for discussion has been reassuringly defined by Professor 
Dewey: "The issues are so interdependent that any one of them can 
be selected only at the risk of ignoring important considerations, or 
else of begging the question by bringing in the very problem under 
discussion in the guise of some other subject. Yet limits of time 
and space require that some one field be entered and occupied by 
itseK. . . . The difficulty is particularly great in the discussion of 
interest." Such being the case, it is necessary either to establish the 
most generally accepted limits of the field, or else to fix the bounds 
arbitrarily. To this end will be considered (1) the present occasion for 
investigation of the topic, (2) its aim, (3) the nature and range of 
previous investigations and sources, (4) the method of procedure, 
(5) the scope and definition of terms, and (6) the problems excluded 
from the discussion. 

1. Appropriateness of the Topic. — Academic study of educational 
controls is probably more extensive at present than ever before in 
America, and attention to the by-products and methods of other 
sciences has done much to widen the approach, yet a comparison of the 
means employed to solve moot-points of theory in the United States 
with those of England, for example, will probably show the former to 
be more largely quantitative. This applies with equal force to prob- 
lems of administration, supervision, and teaching. The quantitative 
approach is thoroughly justified by its results, by the necessity of 
dealing with large numbers, of substituting fact for opinion, and by 
many other arguments no less conclusive. Yet however justified by 

1 



2 An Approach to the Sijnthetic 

results and prospects, the claims of the quantitative approach cannot 
be fully vindicated without the intervention of the devil's advocate, 
and it is this function that the present article seeks to fulfill. It is 
largely in the replies to the quo bono? that the value of real dis- 
covery becomes evident. It is then reasonable to expect some assist- 
ance toward further experiment from the analysis of inferential 
opinion regarding interest. Some corollaries of this assumption 
may be very generally stated. 

(a) More concretely, there is need for some study — other than 
the single chapter of the standard text-books — to consider the con- 
tributions of the early child-study movement to the problems of 
interest from the standpoint of descriptive psychology. While 
these studies have doubtless been wisely evaluated and to some ex- 
tent applied, further research should be stimulated by knowledge 
of the extent to which they confirm or invalidate empirical hypotheses. 

(6) The hiatus which existed formerly between pedagogical studies 
of interest in the classroom, in particular studies, etc., and the purely 
speculative and philosophical descriptions of so-called social interests, 
"springs of action," etc., has within recent years been filled by the 
writings of the " Behaviorist " school. The influence of genetic 
psychology upon class instruction and courses of study has been largely 
stimulated thereby and has combined with the measurement move- 
ment to provide more adequate curricula and more effective methods 
both of teaching and administration. There have been few attempts 
to separate out and analyze the principles governing the growth of 
individual interest from the more general studies of individual differ- 
ences in connection with normal group distribution. Such analysis 
should thus contribute to the effectiveness of the vocational guidance, 
problem-project, supervised study, and similar movements. 

(c) The application of the psychology of psycho-analytic treat- 
ment of neurotics to normal individuals and to the principles of 
education generally is very rapidly winning the sanction of respon- 
sible writers on education. While the dangers attending direct 
application of the methods are at present prohibitive, there is reason 
to suppose that methods of instruction may profit by further studies 
of the unconscious. War-time analyses of normal individuals suf- 
fering from shell-shock have done much to eliminate the emphasis 
upon sex and to extend the field of application.^ Of note in this 
connection is the bearing of such studies upon the problems of re- 
* c/. Dr. Southard's article: Mental Hygiene. Hygiene, Jan., 1920. 



Study of Interest in Education 3 

pression of interest, the diagnosis of repressed interest, the general 
factor of interest, et al. Discussion of this evidence as appHed to 
education has not, to the best of the writer's knowledge, been related 
to other data available. 

(d) There is noticeable in the current discussions of the theory 
of interest a very natural prejudice against the "doctrine of inter- 
est." One evident effect of this prejudice in the United States is 
to restrict the discussion. Stated in very general terms, there is 
a tendency on the part of most writers to mediate between the two 
evils of "soft-pedagogy" and formal discipline, and to leave it to 
the quantitative estimate of results and the teacher's good sense to 
strike a happy compromise. While the remedy lies rather in evolution 
than research, it would seem advisable that the cause of such preju- 
dice be analyzed, if other than the over-enthusiasm and dogmatism 
of certain Herbartians and Frobelians. 

(e) Finally, it will suffice to mention the most inclusive justifi- 
cation for a study of this kind: namely, the importance of proper 
diagnosis of the pupils' interest as compared with other factors of 
the educative process. From the standpoint of secondary education 
the following remark of Inglis may be taken to represent the con- 
sensus of responsible opinion: "It is probably no exaggeration to 
say that the adaptation of secondary education on the one hand to 
meet the needs of different capacities, interests, and probable futures 
among pupils, and on the other hand to meet the differentiated 
needs of society, is the most important problem of secondary educa- 
tion at the present time."^ 

(/) In summary it may be observed that an investigation of in- 
terest may profitably be undertaken for the purpose of gathering 
together the results of studies made from many different points of 
approach. Upon such data it should be possible to form a more 
comprehensive and applicable notion of interest than that obtained 
either from general experience, from educational and philosophical 
theory, from descriptive and analytical psychology, or from attempts 
at quantitative measurement alone. Such a notion should contribute 
something to the existing theory and apphcation of methods — if 
only the incentive to further and more conclusive research. 

2. Aim. — The proposed study seeks first by selection from varied 
sources to identify and correlate certain psycho-physical and social 
elements of interest at successive stages of development. By extend- 

' Alexander Inglis: "The Principles of Secondary Education," p. 75. 



4 An Approach to the Synthetic 

ing the conception of interest to include the entire range of popular 
and scientific denotation, it will seek to indicate the nature, develop- 
ment, and effect of the significant forms of its expression. In this 
course certain relationships are noted which suggest an approach 
to the further investigation of their educational value. In the main 
this value should consist in a conception of general principles of 
motivation whose validity is dependent upon accurate diagnosis 
of interest. As applied both to the periods of school life and to 
the stages of instruction in a single subject, this expression of interest 
is obviously determined by the other chief factors in experience — 
thought or knowledge, and action. The final chapter, which outlines 
the educational bearing of those preceding, considers these deter- 
minants of motivation in order to indicate an approach towards 
standardization of the learning process. Only tentative conclusions 
are reached. Hence discussion of the study is rather descriptive 
than expository. 

3. Previous Investigations and Sources. — It will be helpful here to 
distinguish briefly the main classes of contributory material by select- 
ing certain representatives of each class by which the student can 
cover the field with the greatest economy of time. If the material 
be divided first into three general classes, the first (a) may include 
those works in which the analysis of interest is largely introspective. 
Among these may be further distinguished those with a direct peda- 
gogical reference and those without. The second class (6) may include 
the various forms of descriptive psychology, ranging all the way from 
the results of laboratory analysis to accurate biographies of childhood 
and adolescence. The intervals in the range are marked by the 
divisions of purely analytic psychology, social psychology, and biologi- 
cal studies of various degrees of scientific tenor. The remaining class 
(c) for lack of a better term may be called statistical. Here belong 
the child-study and other investigations to determine by group 
analysis the nature of interest and the effect of various influences 
upon its expression. It should be noted that each of these classes 
is further distributed between the strictly pedagogical and the 
strictly psychological approach and also between the direct and the 
incidental study of interest. In spite of the greater difficulty of 
adaptation, the latter classes are generally speaking the more 
reliable. 

(a) It is not surprising that the field of introspective psychology 
is the one most fertile for the student of interest. We know that a 



Study of Interest in Education 5 

particular feeling has certain qualities for us, but not why it has 
them, "Warmth and intimacy" have no objective criteria. Hence 
any account of the affective process which bridges the gaps of the 
physiological approach on the one hand and is free from a teleo- 
logical bias on the other, is likely to square best with the facts and 
to provide the most satisfactory basis for further analysis. The 
statement is probably correct that no single mental trait has yet been 
adequately measured, and the inference as to the role of feelings 
which is based upon their expression under prescribed conditions 
must be confirmed by introspective judgment to win acceptance. 
Thus in spite of its generahty and on account of its many points 
of contact with others, this field furnishes the ground work for the 
student of interest in education. Its important contributions are 
strictly in harmonj^ with scientific method in that judgment is 
brought to bear upon all the facts of all the sciences pertinent to the 
subject of inquiry. 

Of the directly pedagogical literature the basis is of course found 
in J. F. Herbart's Outlines of Educational Doctrine^ and Science 
of Education,^ — together with the critical accounts of Adams,' 
Graves,* and Tompkins.^ Herbert's contribution to the study of 
interest consists in his rough analysis of the state itself,^ in the rela- 
tion of interest to other factors of the learning process and to 
the development of character, and in the move toward alignment 
of both sciences with wider teaching experience and observation. 
With the passing of the "doctrine" as a cult and the rapid develop- 
ment of analytic psychology, we have clearly distinguished what 
is valuable in the Herbartian theory from what is not.^ The in- 
creasing recognition of the child plus the situation as the unit of 
endeavor instead of the class, promises to releaCse this valuable ele- 

> Lange and DeGarmo's translation. 

^ H. M. and E. Felkin's translation. 

'John Adams: "The Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education; The 
Evolution of Educational Theory," p. 322ff. 

* F. P. Graves: "History of Education in Modern Times," pp. 19&-220. 

' A. Tompkins: Herbert's Philosophy and his Educational Theory. Educo 
ti(n\al Review, Chapter X\I, pp. 233-243. 

« " Outlines," Chapter V ; " Science of Education," Book II, Chapter III. The 
analysis here given is never entirely excluded from modern scientific accounts; e.g., 
S. H. Rowe: "Habit Formation and the Science of Teaching," p. 136ff. 

' As often emphasized, Herbart's chief inconsistency lies in regarding ideas 
as the psychological cause of interest and interest as the pedagogical means of 
obtaining ideas. 



6 An Approach to the Synthetic 

ment from formalism — due rather to his disciples than to Herbart 
himself — and to interpret it in the light of fuller knowledge. It 
is thus in general true that contributions to the study of interest 
from the field of purely introspective thought consist largely in these 
interpretations of Herbartian principles modified and enriched by 
subsequent application and reflection. Dewey's monograph, Interest 
and Effort in Education, may alone serve to illustrate the real value 
of recent pedagogical works of this group. Conspicuous among the 
strictly psychological contributions by the "direct" method is W. 
Mitchell's The Structure and Growth of the Mind.^ The analysis 
here made of interest as a factor in universal experience is probably 
the most inclusive and adequate to be found, and the comparatively 
invincible logic of the positions outlined recommends them as thor- 
oughly reliable hypotheses where established fact is insufficient to 
provide suitable explanation of the behavior involved. Such confi- 
dence is further justified by the fact that the work is in no sense 
educational in purpose and the phenomena of interest are not isolated 
from other mental phenomena. As such it alone may represent the 
direct psychological approach.- 

(b) It is difficult to select from the wide contribution of analytic 
and descriptive psychology to the study of mental traits. For the 
entire physiological approach to interest the following are essential: 
W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology; Th. Ribot, The Psy- 
chology of Attention; E. L. Thorndike, Educational Psychology, 
Vol. Ill; F. Arnold, Attention and Interest; and E. B. Titchener, 
The Psychology of Feeling and Attention. Such general treatments 
will frequently require reference to such works as G. F. Stout's 
Analytical Psychology and W. H. Howell's Physiology. 

1 London, 1907. The author distinguishes the direct (or introspective) 
explanation of experience as that mainly concerned with the growth of the mind 
through use, the indirect being concerned with the physical account of experi- 
ence. For brief critical appreciation of Mitchell's treatment of interest see 
J. M. Baldwin: " Thought and Things," III: 13, whose "Genetic Theory of Re- 
ality " (1915) contains a further development of this treatment of interest. 

^ Although the entire range of critical and impressionistic writing belongs 
properly imder this head. From among such brief treatments as will readily 
occur to the reader, the following may be mentioned as excellent: 

W. C. Ruediger: " Principles of Education," Chapter XV. 

P. Sandiford : "The Mental and Physical Life of School Children," Chapter XIIL 

Strayer and Norsworthy: " How to Teach," Chapter III. 

W. C. Bagley: "School Discipline," Chapter IV. 

E. A. Kirkpatrick: "The Individual in the Making," Chapter II. 



Study of Interest in Education 7 

Distinguishing from the above such studies of interest as stress 
the biological and social aspects, one finds numerous secondary 
treatments that compare favorably with original investigations in 
scope and which of course are more readily adapted to educational 
application. The approach can probably be covered sufficiently by 
J. M. Baldwin's Mental Development: Social and Ethical Interpre- 
tations; K. Groos, The Play of Man; E. A. Kirkpatrick, Genetic 
Psychology; and W. McDougall, Introduction to Social Psychology. 
These should be supplemented by M. W. Keatinge, Suggestion in 
Education; J. Lee, Play in Education; H. Marot, Creative Impulse 
in Industry; M. Nicoll, Dream Psychology; G. Wallas, Human Na- 
ture and Politics; and W. A. White, Mechanisms of Character For- 
mation. This material contributes to such fundamental topics as 
the source and role of interest in all activity, its familiar manifesta- 
tions in the process of growth, the modification of normal biological 
tendencies resulting from social contact, and the implications of 
socialized expression. 

(c) The caption "statistical" has been chosen to cover the great 
variety of studies — mainly educational in aim — which have re- 
corded and compared the preferences, the environmental conditions, 
and the specific reactions of groups of children as means for diag- 
nosing interest. The range of these child-studies by questionnaire 
methods from 1895 to 1905 may be readily observed from the indices 
of such journals as the Pedagogical Seminary and the Child Study 
Monthly for these years. Other methods include the enumeration 
of objects collected at different ages, analysis of compositions, infer- 
ence from definitions of various objects and abstract ideas, from free 
drawings, from games, from ideas longest remembered, from verbal 
replies to prepared questions, and from observation of the child's 
reaction to pictures, stories, and other amusements. The two lines 
of study represented by Terman's Measurement of Intelligence and 
Link's Employment Psychology are defining quantatively some few 
"specificities" that enter into all interest and relating these to 
environmental controls. This approach, while chiefly of indirect 
value at present, is certain to contribute most eventually. 

The fact that very few of such studies have made any real contri- 
bution to the theory of interest renders these few easy to distin- 
guish. The method and value of three types of these latter may be 
briefly illustrated by Croswell's "Amusements of Worcester School 
Children;"! Chapman and Feeler's "The Effect of External In- 

' Pedagogical Seminary, VI: 314-371. 



8 An Approach to the Synthetic 

centives on Improvement;"^ and Thorndike's "Early Interests; Their 
Permanence and Relation to Abilities. "^ 

Croswell received 2,000 replies to a topical syllabus by which 
children were asked when, why, and what games and toys were played 
with and which were favorites. One thousand replies were received 
from each sex. These were tabulated under various heads to show 
by how many each amusement was mentioned and by how many it was 
preferred, of each sex. Each classification under this scheme is 
represented graphically by per cent and age to show "curves of 
relative interest." These indicate the growth of "special" interests 
and show the nascent periods in a number of groups. Thus "the 
curve of games of chase shows that only eleven per cent of 
all amusements mentioned by boys of six years are of this character, 
but at nine years they amount to over nineteen per cent and at six- 
teen they have fallen to less than four per cent." Each classification 
is carefully analyzed from many points of view and much col- 
lateral material is utilized to substantiate the conclusions drawn. 
The bibliography is entirely complete for 1899. Confidence is further 
justified by the fact that in many cases the teachers talked over the 
questions with the children, but what distinguishes the study from 
others of its type is the thorough analysis by other evidence. As a 
fair indication of the normal expression of genetic interests in one 
locality (seven schools from widely different communities were ex- 
amined), it is a valuable supplement to such generalized evidence as 
that presented by Groos and other child biographers. By recording 
and classifying all forms of spontaneous activities, the data afford much 
more assistance in the analysis of interest than closer analysis of 
certain selected activities. 

A parallel-group studj'' based directly on elementary school prac- 
tice was conducted by Chapman and Feeler (1917) to determine 
the effect of external incentive on rate of improvement in performance 
of school work. Assuming the close relation between interest and 
effort, two methods were employed, — the direct appeal to the sub- 
ject's interest by showing its close relation to the desired activity, and 
the indirect or borrowed appeal of rewards and incentives external 
to the process itself. A group of thirty-six fifth grade boys and girls 
was divided and tested for nine successive days by Thorndike's simple 

"^ Journal of Educatio?ial Psychology, VIII:4G9-474. 
' School anrl Society, V: 178. 



Study of Interest in Education 9 

addition test (ten minutes), Wood worth and Wells' cancellation test 
(one minute), and in substituting figures for numerals (five minutes). 
Incentive and stimulation were applied as follows : 

GROUP A GROUP B. 

(In addition to B.) (No stimulation except) 

1. Each pupil's results published for 1. Informed of errors in addition, 
previous day. 

2. Point marked in blue of previous 2. Novelty of test. 
day's performance. 

3. General improvement of class shown 3. Interest in work itself, 
by graph. 

4. Credits given in form of stars for 4. Same conditions as those of serious 
improvement from last record and school work. 

for position in class. Prizes 
promised at end of ten periods to 
fifty per cent who had most stars 
for efficiency and improvement. 

The results, which are shown graphically, are somewhat impressive. 
The rate of improvement of the two groups varies directly with the 
length of the practice period in each operation. By the ninth period 
the motivated group stood ten points higher than the unmotivated, 
the points being awarded for each correct operation and subtracted 
for those incorrect. The diagnosis of individual interest responsive 
to such direct appeal and the standardization of the stimulus is clearly 
a study of the first importance. 

While of no immediate significance in point of method, Thorn- 
dike's current investigation to establish a correlation between inter- 
est and ability may inspire effort to determine the causes for the 
variation^ which will then offer an approach to the quantitative 
description of interest in terms of relatively measurable determi- 
nants. The remark seems almost superfluous that no affective state 
can be recognized objectively except by the inevitable movements 
accompanying it, between which and the state itself, in a given in- 
stance, the subject cannot distinguish any constant correlation. 

^ As will later appear, the compensating interest in deficiencies is probably 
constant and so would tend to reduce the correlation suggested by Thorndike as 
eighty-nine per cent. This wider variation, if established, must then be seriously 
investigated. But see Thorndike, Educational Psychology, III • 360ff. for view 
of compensation consistent with the above text. 



10 An. Aiiprodc/i lo Ihc Si/nllicl.ic 

I'Voin ilui r(i|)li<'H of 'AW (tollcn*^ hIikIcmiIh lo ji, (|U(!nl,i()nnnii(i callin}? 
for III) indictiiUoii of hoMi iiit(;r(;Hl. uiid ahilil.y in i,\w. v.-irioiiH HUjdi(;H 
in the IiihI, llircc^ ycurH of (ihMruuitJuy hc^IiooI, in liij^h school, and in 
collogo, I lie follovviiif^ r.'ilioH jmc coiiipiilcd: 

I'ltiuvioim 

llll)Hi;i/rM MIOM KiDHIII.'l H irllOM 

.'Ml 10(1 

I NI>IVI1>IIAI,M I NI>IVIIlllAI.M 

Permanence of Jntereala 

I'llniriniiliirv HCiliool iiilrrcNl. willi lii^li hcIiodI iiit.crcHi . r -' .85 

Ml(imriil.iiry Hfiliool iiitcrcHl, willi colli'Hd inrricHl r ^ .(1(1 .00 

\\\\.'\\ Mcliodl itilcMcNl, wilrh cdlh-fr*! iiilfidHl r -' 75) 

lUnaiiniucr, of AhilitiiH 

\']\t'it\('i\{nvy HcliodI iiliilily willi \m!,\\ Hcliool M,l)ilil,v . . r ■■ .8.3 

Mlfiiiciiliirv hcImmiI iihilily willi «Mill(ifi;(i nhilil.y r ■• .71 .00 

lliuli Mcliool nhilil.y willi <:()ll(iK<) iil)ilil-y ^. . r •- .00 .0 

UoHOinblanrti nf an. I ndividwil' a Order of 
liiUriHl to Ilia Order of AhilitieH 

III IiinI, a yiiiuH ol" (^h'liH'iitiuy hc^IiooI r - .81) .89 

III ImkIi Mrlioul r '- .H\) .80 

III r..ll.r.c r - .89 .89 

.Mlcr innkinj"; mIIowjukki Tor (MTor, (Jic jiulJior (Mjiicludcs "On the 
vvliolc I l>('li«'V('i Unit (lie conclnMoiiH >>;iv('n al)ov(i ai(^ approxiniaUiIy 
wlial. ;iii oninJHcicnl. oh.Mcivcr of Michc^ pcrHons would hav(^ found. 
... As MiioMu'i- cMHc of special inl,(>r(rs(, in pra(!tic(5 W(^ may take llic! 
HiKnilicaiicc of Ihc reports of relative interest at, 11-M, for rela- 
tive ability nl. lil or later, eominonly later." 'Phis hitter possibility 
cerlMiidy o(T(m-s suflieient incentives to improve the methods by whifih 
real iiilcresls may be diagnosed more specilicaliy to in(li(^at,(^ promises, 
if it be <'stnblishe<l that their correhitions with measureabhs abilities 
are low. 

This hasty survey of S(>urces should suji;^;esl, iJie wides variety of 
Jipproacluss to lh(s study and somethinjj; of the relative and partic^dar 
vnluo of each t.yp(» of material. 

'1. MrthotI of I'rocahirc. 'The study to be outlined is based upon a 
thr<'e fold division of subject matter. 'Phens aro other reaHons for 
this division than that of mere conveni(>nce. l<]m|)l()yin^; l\w familiar 
distinction lu^tween tcviching, instruction, and education which identi- 
fi(SH teaching- with skill-training', instruction with tlus orjj;anization of 
knowledK<' b\' habit, :iii(l educ'ilion with the inodilicMt ion of characjtor 



tStudy of Interest in Education 11 

by tho uddifion of idoals to iho foroKoin^, wo havt; a basis, largely 
hypoth(!ii(%'d no doubt, for distinclion b(!twi!(!n as|){H!ts of tlu; j)rocos8. 
Such distinction is further supported by tho "three levels" of neural 
devolopmont. Tho concoiiii(,ant activities of those; are somewhat in 
a}i;r(!orn(;iit with tho inton^sts charactcn-istic of each period as ex- 
pressed in favorite amusements, etc, which, are assigned roughly to 
tho mental ages birth to six, six to nine, and nine to fourteen. Still 
further it is convenient to Ki'^'ip the data und(!r tho physiological, th(; 
bioIofj;ical and tho sociolo^i(!al interpretations so as to furnish loosely 
(!orrespondint»; treatments of (I) interest as a state of (!ons(!i()Usness, 
(II) of its d(;volopniont in universal forms of oxpn^ssion, and (III) 
of tho mo(lifi(\'itions in its expression hitluu'to rofijanhid as instinc- 
tive which nvsult from social contact. While it uchmIs to Ix; (emphasized 
that (l(!velopm(uit of int(!r(;st like that of all mental traits is gradual 
and that distinctt pcsriods of growth in tlu; various factors do not syn- 
chroni/iO at tho thr(!0 stages in oik; individual, still it is b(;li{;v(;(l that 
tho theoretical analysis is in suflicieently close; agr(;(;mont with l)iological 
law to justify this i)lan of proc(;dure. 

5. Scope and Definition of Terms. — In ord(!r that the; acciount may 
be as inclusive as possible, tho term interest is interpreted in its literal 
sense to include all media of correspondcence botw(;en tlu; mind and 
the object, real or imaginary, of its contemplation. Subtracting 
thought and action from the course of experience, interest is what 
remains. Hon(;e intonest implies tho emotional ac(!omf)animent of 
every attentive state without regard to tho (juality or intcsnsity of the 
emotional tone. Whih; this catholit! and somewhat technical use of 
the t(;rm is partly rosl,rir;t(;d and partly justifi(;d as th(; discussioij 
proceeds, it is boliev(;d that no otli(;r can Ix; stri(!tly in k(;oping with 
the purpose of the inquiry. 

'Vo prevent analysis in vacuo, certain hypotheses are here sug- 
gested in anti(;ipation of th(;ir later development. It is important 
that some und(;rstanding b(; reached at the outset concerning the re- 
lation of intor(;st to mental experience as such and to other i)he- 
nomena of which it forms a part. 

Assuming interest to lie (;ntir(;ly within tli(! limits of tlu; affectivM^ 
process by which knowledge and action an; d(;tormined,^ one may 

' For auUioril-y in iJic hhuw f^fiiKU'uI torirm cf. .[. .JiihIjow, " Wliut men do dof)nndH 
upon wliat they holiovc;, and how ili(\y fc^cl," " The \'Hy^•^\^)\o\.\y of Conviction," j). 7, 
and also " Fundamentally beliefs aro I'onned and licid r)c'c.auHe they Hatisfy." 
Ibid p. fi. 



12 An A-pproach to the Synthetic 

first consider the relation of interest to feeling in general. Reduced 
to its simplest terms, the process of development begins with certain 
specific reactions to appropriate stimuli which the organism is pre- 
natally disposed to feel. At this stage the affect forms practically 
the whole of experience which results from tendencies to experiment 
with various stimuli. At a later stage, when present feeling is modi- 
fied by the results of former feeling, experience is determined by both. 
Interest, by hypothesis, is determined by the results of former feeling, 
i.e., by experience. It should be noted that here such past experience 
is useful for merely specific ends. Organized response to a particular 
set of stimuli is not adapted to a different but similar set.^ At a still 
later stage previous experience is so organized that reactions to usual 
situations are made with maximum ease and minimum feeling. Un- 
usual situations are recognized as such and graded with respect to the 
intensity of the emotional response required. Such intensity is deter- 
mined by the now habitual interests of the individual experience. 
Thus the inverse ratio of feeHng and organized knowledge varies 
between pure feeling and complete knowledge. From this it may be 
observed that interest includes those elements of present feeling which 
combined with organic tendencies and associated elements of past 
feeling may be understood to determine the intensity, direction, and 
persistence of each attentive state. The investigation is then, in a 
sense, to analyze and explain these determinants with reference to 
successive periods of growth. 

In order to identify forms of behavior resulting from these organic 
tendencies rather than from associated elements of past feeling, the 
distinction between interest and instinct deserves brief comment. 
It is clear that such distinction must be arbitrary since the functions 
of both overlap so considerably in any given experience. Essentially 
the criterion is the degree to which the course of reaction is perfected. 
Hence acquired instincts differ from organic instincts simply in that the 
latter direct the course of seeking without reference to previous experi- 
ence. The development is therefore from instinct through interest 
to acquired instinct. This notion may serve here to avoid the con- 



^ Thus the boy who is first reduced to tears by the sight of his brother's chastise- 
ment and later by the mental picture of Simon Legree's lash across the back of 
Uncle Tom, has failed so to relate knowledge with feeling that a recurrence of 
the generic situation will provoke the same response — desire to avert suffering, 
perhaps — with decreased intensity of feeling. 



Study of Interest in Education 13 

fusion which must otherwise exist between so-called "special" interests 
and acquired instincts.^ 

It is desirable to make another distinction here for future refer- 
ence. Both feeling and interest imply pleasure-pain, satisfaction and 
dissatisfaction, etc., as resulting from any situation toward which 
attention is directed. Both should however be distinguished from 
thought of such situation. The object as it is set before us, we think; 
the manner in which it affects us, we feel. Therefore by our interest 
in the object we refer to our attitude toward it, and we may think 
of this attitude as well as of the objective qualities. Interest in the 
object may be spoken of as a quality of the object and so included in 
our thought of it. A cheerful fire is thought of as a kind of fire that 
makes the beholder cheerful. Hence interest is often, yet not always, 
included in thought of a particular situation, but thought is not 
properly included in the interest. ^ 

This distinction between interest in the object and interest in the 
thought of it is useful in defining what is referred to throughout 
as type of interest. By analogy with memory the question is often 
asked; there is interest, but are there interests?^ The answer depends 
of course upon whether interest is considered as potential or as ex- 
pressed in various situations. In the latter case it is evident that 
previous experience with a similar situation determines the subject's 
attitude both to the situation itself and to the thought of it. There is 
then a logical basis for a theoretical classification of such attitudes 
by types of experience. Furthermore since certain types of interest 
as distinguished by such attitudes are characteristic of each individu- 
al and so greatly affect his interpretation of environment, the dis- 
covery of the appropriate type and a knowledge of its limitations is the 
theoretical prerequisite of effective motivation. As distinguished in 
the analysis to follow the types are three: an intrinsic, which seeks 

^ This distinction is regularly ignored in popular studies of "the collective 
instinct," "the travel instinct," etc., and becomes tenuous as regards imitation, 
gregariousness, curiosity, et al. 

2 For elaboration of this distinction which is most important in educational 
practice and for the study of correlations between interest, knowledge and abilities, 
see W. Mitchell, op. cit.. pp. 64-65. The investigations of J. M. Cattell and others 
have established the fact that attention to an entirely uninteresting object is 
seldom longer than a minute's duration. This does not invalidate the above 
distinction. 

^ e.g., G. E. St. John: Children's Interests. Child Study Monthly, 3: pp. 
284-286. 



14 An Approach to the Synthetic 

indulgence of feeling toward the situation; practical, which seeks use- 
fulness, or directs action towards the situation; and cognitive, which 
seeks meaning.^ Each of these types is conceived to be differentiated 
by socialized expression so as later to bring certain elements into 
prominence that are comparatively negligible during infancy. 

For further assistance in classifying interest in particular forms 
of activity the term variety of interest has been accepted as some- 
what synonymous with "special interests" as the latter term is popu- 
larly used. There is, however, the difference that the variety of 
interest applies to that common quality of certain objects or activi- 
ties which explains the subject's attitude toward them, in the sense 
that the attitude can only be known objectively as it is combined 
with thought of the object and so regarded as a quality.^ "Special" 
interests are usually identified with the chosen activities themselves. 
While certain elementary varieties may occur in any type, those 
appearing later tend to find expression in appropriate types; though 
since the pure type probably exists only in abstraction, the truth of 
this statement depends largely upon the specific case. 

It is recognized that without copious illustration, which space 
does not permit, the formal statements and diagrams of such 
general principles as the above may tend to obscure the facts they 
are intended to organize. It should therefore be emphasized at 
this point that the principles hereafter outlined are valueless except 
as applied to the specific situation. The situation can never be 
applied to the formula without danger of aeroplaning. 

6. Problems Excluded from the Discussion. — (a) No attempt will 
be made to justify the theory of the concomitant development of 

1 After W. Mitchell, loc. cit. In general, the agreement among authorities in 
different fields upon this logical classification of interests is surprisingly close. 
Following Herbert's three-fold classification under the two divisions of "knowl- 
edge" and "participation," others who have employed substantially the same 
terms as the above are W. H. Kilpatrick: The Problem-project Attack in Organ- 
izing Subject-matter and Teaching, N. E. A. Proceedings, 1918, pp. 528ff.; J. 
Dewey: " Interest and Effort," Chapter IV; W. McDougall: "An Introduction to 
Social Psychology," p. 26; C. R. Henderson: "Principles of Education," p. 389; 
N. M. Butler: " Meaning of Education," p. 17, who distinguishes religious and 
literary from the purely intrinsic type; J. Welton: " Psychology of Education," p. 
198; and P. Sandiford: " The Mental and Physical Life of School Children," p. 224. 

^ Hence novelty, interest, repetition and movement as well as the acquired 
instincts, curiosity, imitation, et al, are discussed as varieties of interest, since 
all serve to explain the expression of interest in particular as against the general 
expression distinguished by the type. 



Study of Interest in Education 15 

mental traits, the general validity of which, in contrast to the theory 
of periodic development, is assumed. This applies likewise to the 
rejection of saltatory development at adolescence. Without such 
reservations the enforced plan of discussion would superficially imply 
abrupt transition between stages of interest and the periodic appear- 
ance of varieties of interest. 

(6) The theoretical nature of the discussion focusses attention 
upon the phenomena of interest as observable in groups. This 
should not lead to the assumption that individual differences are 
ignored which is one purpose of the study to explain. The first step 
in motivation consists in determining the varieties of interest in 
which expression is temporarily most intense and thereafter in 
such instruction as will evoke expression in useful content as the 
result of voluntary effort of attention. The principles derived from 
groups presuppose such individual study for their application. 

(c) The question of the relation between coercion and appeal 
to direct interest is excluded on the grounds that the situation 
should determine the practice. The effects of coercion upon ex- 
pression of interest are briefly treated. 



Chapter Two. The Nature of Interest 

Interest as a state of consciousness — the -first of the three aspects 
to be considered — is impUed by, if not included in, the phenomena 
of attention. The physiological approach to the study of interest 
must underlie all other approaches, since "The physiological conditions 
of the brain's activities are the first modifiers of feeling and action."' 
Only so far as the attentive process is understood in its relation to 
various types of experience can the nature and development of indivi- 
dual interest be explained by the effects of such experience. Both 
outer stimuli and inner structure are involved. The attentive process 
must accordingly be considered for two purposes: first, in order to 
obtain a working conception of interest-attention as depending largely 
upon environmental factors; and, secondly, to identify various phe- 
nomena of interest with physiological processes by which these phe- 
nomena are conditioned. 

The wide difference of expert opinion as to the distinction between 
attention and interest is proof that no clear distinction exists. ^ Yet 
some such distinction is required if environmental stimuli are to 
be so related to organic processes that the effect of each is apparent 
in the normal expression of interest. As best suiting this purpose 
the distinction may therefore be made on the basis of relativity. 
Such factors of the interest-attention state as are more largely organic 
and hence constant in their effects upon various normal individuals 
may be identified with attention. Such factors as are largely environ- 
mental and hence variable in their effects may be identified with 
interest. Attention, thus conceived results largely from nature, 
and interest from nurture. The former implies the capacity to attend, 
and the latter the direction of such capacity by the creation of desires 
and aversions through contact with environment. 

This distinction between absolute and relative factors in the 
same state of consciousness serves the first purpose outlined above by 

1 E. L. Thorndike: "Educational Psychology," III : 308. 
^c/. E. B. Titchener: "Psychology of Feeling and Attention," pp. 294flf. for 
views of Ebblinghaus, Pillsbury, Stout, and Wundt. 

16 



Study of Interest in Education 17 

suggesting a correspondence between types of interest and types of 
attention. Such correspondence is clearly helpful in the attempt to 
explain differences in mental process as determined by differences in 
environment. The reference to "types" of attention suggests that the 
modern analysis of the state under the heads of span, concentration, 
distribution, etc. is to be abandoned in favor of the older classi- 
fication — involuntary, non-voluntary, and voluntary (McDougall), 
or sensorial and intellectual (James), or emotional and volitional 
(Meumann), etc. The classification has the advantage in the present 
instance of including all the factors capable of analysis in addition 
to other factors implied in a given state and yet incapable of differen- 
tiation. The classification accepted by McDougall as above^ is further 
useful in that the distinction between types of attention is based on 
the motor and neural processes involved. The relation of organic 
structure to environmental differences is thereby greatly facilitated 
provided that some connection can be established between types of 
attention and types of interest, the latter to be distinguished by the 
class of situations or of objects attended to. 

The simplest means of arriving at this correspondence between 
types of attention and of interest is to note the effects of each type of 
attention in the expression of interest. The course of expression at any 
stage of development proceeds from a relatively less satisfying state of 
consciousness and seeks a relatively more satisfying state. The 
mechanical or motory process of the seeking is attention, and interest 
yields the feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.- Hence it is 
evident that the distinction between types must depend primarily 
upon the nature of the object which determines the course of seeking. 
Certain classes of objects which provoke relatively more intense 
feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction serve also to select those 
motor processes best able to produce the desired effect. The effects 
of involuntary, non-voluntary, and voluntary attention may thus 
be noted as resulting from intensity of stimulus. It is obvious that 
the distinction between types is rather one of degree than of kind. 

The characteristic effect of involuntary attention is fixation, 
or placing the object in such position that a clearer view is obtained. 
The physical sub-processes imphed result in the better adjustment 
of the sense organs, movements to or from the object, and instinctive 
analysis of it. The type is chiefly distinguished by the motor element, 

1 Mind N. S., XI: 319, Note 1. 

»c/. W. Mitchell: "The Structure and Growth of the Mind," pp. 90flf. 



18 An Approach to the Synthetic 

which is reflex or instinctive. The adjustment is entirely effortless 
and no feelings of inhibition are apparent.^ This fact justifies the 
assumption that involuntary attention which persists appreciably 
beyond the reaction time is commonly aroused only by situations of 
relatively maximum intensity. Such situations demanding immediate 
response are referred directly to the instinctive mechanism without 
risking the delay involved in judgment. This directness of response 
resulting from maximum intensity of stimulus is also characteristic of 
the intrinsic type of interest which seeks indulgence in feeling as such. 
It finds expression in such varieties of interest as are based in qualities 
of objects that are intense in themselves; as, for example, novelty, 
contrast, repetition, movement, rhythm and other qualities leading 
to states of absorption. Involuntary attention and intrinsic interest 
are both imphed in sensori-motor experiment and in response to 
strong stimuli. 

The normal effect of non-voluntary attention is merely a later 
phase of the fixation process which occurs when the desired state is 
not promptly attained. This effect has been termed mental manipu- 
lation. It consists in a revolving, analysis, and comparison of the 
situation with others. The ideo-motor process which controls the 
course of seeking is based on experience of earlier reflex movements. 
Action involves scarcely more effort than when attention is involuntary. 
Here again the effect of attention is to provide the means for the 
realization of interest which in this case seeks a change rendered 
desirable by previous rather than present experience. Its commoner 
expressions reveal interest in the overcoming of obstacles. Such 
interest is properly classified as practical since it includes such varieties 
as find expression in outer imitation, pursuit, and all forms of rivalry 
upon which the survival of the organism most directly depends. 
Intensity is lower than in expressions of intrinsic interest since the 
course of seeking is less immediately satisfying in itself. Interest 
in the pure stimulus is greater than interest in the object to be resisted. 
Thus the simultaneous appearance and scope of both non-voluntary 
attention and practical interest in all habitual behavior suggests 
a correspondence between these types. 

The effect of voluntary attention is continued scrutiny of the object. 
Action is impeded by the necessity for selection of the best means from 
all means available. Neural dispositions resulting from past experi- 

1 Though the factor of inhibition is doubtless involved as suggested by Sherring- 
ton: "Integration of the Nervous System." 



Study of Interest in Education 19 

ence must be successively inhibited. Hence the process might last 
indefinitely, but for the factor of fatigue and changes in the object 
itseK which may bring relief in action before the difl&culty has been 
solved. In this course of seeking, interest implies the revival of and 
selection from all relevant ideas that may further the realization of 
useful knowledge. Such interest may therefore be classified as cog- 
nitive or intellectual and said to correspond with voluntary attention. 
It should however be noted that in cognitive interest the nisic character 
of the attentive state is of very brief duration. The slow rhythm and 
fluctuation characteristic of voluntary attention may reduce the in- 
tensity to such a point that attention dies, — and with it very frequently 
the interest. Or else success in solving one aspect of the problem 
before attention may introduce practical or intrinsic elements to the 
existing variety of interest which serve to increase the intensity, — 
often so as to render attention non-voluntary or involuntary. Hence 
the inhibitory effect of voluntary attention need last only long enough 
to admit other types of interest. 

Otherwise stated, attention to any object or situation provides 
the means by which one or more types of interest may be realized. 
Particular sub-processess involved in the course of seeking are selected 
by the immediacy of response required, which depends upon the intensity 
of interest determined by the type of experience. The situation may 
stimulate in order to obtain emotional satisfaction, thus revealing 
intrinsic interest; or attention may seek to overcome a physical diflB- 
culty, — the practical type of interest; or in order to understand the 
situation for future usefulness, — the cognitive type of interest. It 
should be further noted that each attitude toward environment, as 
indicated by type of interest, includes more specific "varieties," which 
are later to be considered in discussing the growth of interest. Several 
such varieties are common to all types of interest, — for example 
interest in achievement or social superiority, which follows the realiza- 
tion of all interest and is the affective equivalent of organic processes 
making for self-preservation. Even when inattentive or involuntarily 
attentive, this interest in achievement consists in the felt attitudes to as- 
pects not attended to and in the exercise of the senses. Ideo-motor non- 
voluntary attention reveals this interest in successful performance 
of habitual acts; voluntary attention in the reaUzation of one or more 
specific interests in the problem. Such specific interests illustrate the 
shifting of types. Voluntary attention may seek to realize interest in 
achievement by the possession of fuller feeling and appreciation, i.e., 



20 An Approach to the Synthetic 

intrinsic interest; or in a new feeling by assuming a practical attitude 
toward the object or a different attitude toward itself; or in relief from 
conflicting feelings by thinking out each side and comparing con- 
sequences.^ The predominant role of this interest in achievement 
found in impulses largely biological in origin, becomes an interest in 
personal superiority as the result of social activity. The important 
psychological implications of resistance to this interest are discussed 
in a later chapter. 

To clarify this discussion of the nature of interest as determined 
largely from without and hence to facilitate future reference, the 
substance of preceding remarks is represented in Figure One. The 
scale of attention is arranged about as suggested by Ribot^ to illus- 
trate the graduated intensity of types. The relationships indicated 
in the chart of interest are substantially in accord with the facts as 
recorded by group studies and logical inference. The clear dis- 
tinction between types shown by the segments of the diagram 
postulates a pure type of interest, which seldom occurs. Later 
analysis will reveal a margin of overlapping which serves to justify 
the apparent restriction of cognitive interest to attentive states of 
low intensity. The figure becomes more intelligible if the three 
segments are regarded as composing a fan, which may close to the 
width of any one segment or open to the width of all three — as here 
shown. This emphasizes the fact that each variety of interest may 
occur in all types. For example, when a boy is sufficiently inter- 
ested in the glitter of a piece of metal to pick it out of the mud, his 
interest may he wholly in the response to strong visual stimulus — the 
gleam — and is therefore intrinsic. Or it may be the hope of sudden 
wealth — a practical interest. Or it may be curiosity to learn why it 
gleams — a cognitive interest. In each case the reaction and hence 
the function of attention depends upon the intensity of interest regard- 
less of type, though the theoretical correspondence may usually be 
justified in a given instance. 

Passing to the second consideration of the physiological approach, 
we have to identify various phenomena of interest with physiologi- 
cal processes which condition these phenomena. In other words 
it is necessary to shift the point of view from the environmental to 
the organic and neurological conditions of attention by which the 
growth of interest is determined. Without pausing to relate the 

' cf. W. Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 95, 98. 
2 "Psychology of Attention,"pp. llOff. 



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ATTENTION - 



22 An Approach to the Synthetic 

many subsidiary factors of attention to the phenomena of interest/ it 
is well at least to mention those processes whose genetic development 
serves to explain stages in the development of interest. Such 
universal forms of expression as are mentioned in connection with 
the growth of interest (Chapter Three) will thus imply the phys- 
iological conditions characteristic of each stage of development. For 
this purpose a most casual reference will suffice. 

Assuming familiarity with the treatments of Baldwin, Thorn- 
dike, and Wundt, we may postulate three stages of interest and 
suggest under broad headings the physiological factors most character- 
istic of each. As commonly distinguished^ these stages are assigned 
roughly to the years birth to 9, 9 to 13, and 13 to maturity. The 
first may bo termed experimental, implying interest in sensory and 
motor exercise for its own sake or for relatively insignificant ends. 
The second, or imitative stage, marks the appearance of aggressive 
and defensive social interests that show native biological tendencies 
in partial conflict with environment. The third or reflective stage, 
while of course including the features of the earlier stages, shows the 
individual largelj'^ identified with certain ends. Such interests may 
be said to have become habitual. While the expression of all 
interest is normally distributed over the range of development 
indicated by the three stages, these periods determined by the notion 
of neural arcs are helpful for purposes of classification. 

The physiological basis of interest-attention may be referred to 
the combination of organic and neural processes. The organic must 
here be largely disregarded, yet their role in the effective expression 
of interest is fundamental. Motor, respiratory, and vaso-motor 
phenomena are essential constituents of every state. The genetic 
development of these organic processes is implied by capacity for 
rational choice, which involves conscious control of motor processes 
and to some extent of the respiratory. In a word, the stages of in- 
terest are marked by the appearance of various forms of movement. 
Reflex and instinctive, ideo-motor, and voluntary movements 
develop successively and imply greater capacity to profit by exper- 
ience, as suggested in the preceding discussion of type. Since all 
forms of attention must appear in each stage and develop concom- 

' McDougall offers a list of fifteen such factors which might profitably be so 
related. Mind. N. S., XII: 317-8. 

* By Adams: "Exposition and Illustration in Teaching," p. 54; Baldwin, 
" Mental Development: Social and Ethical Interpretations," pp. 362ff; Croswell, 
loc. eit.; et al. 



Study of Interest in Education 23 

itantly, the course of motor development toward voluntary inhibi- 
tion is closely parallel. Certain reflex movements are valuable 
aids in the diagosis of unconscious interest. Others by mere ex- 
penditure of energy facilitate attention indirectly by arousing the 
motor centers, and directly by adjustment of the sense organs. In- 
stinctive movements combine a series of reflex movements in a cer- 
tain order which the ideo-motor process connects with an idea of the 
situation as a whole. Hence the effect of the movement upon the 
impression or idea is the important one of reinforcenemt by inner- 
vation. The idea can be more clearly distinguished if the related 
movement is actually made. The inhibitions of voluntary move- 
ment are likewise explained as the omission to reinforce ideas with 
undesirable associations. Such inhibitions involve the uncertain 
relation of interest to fatigue. The remark is probably safe that 
the degree of general fatigue inhibited varies directly, but within 
narrow limits, with intensity of affective tone.^ Respiratory pro- 
cesses, as determining in part the distribution of attention, develop 
simila^l3^ The vaso-motor process, as regulating with other factors 
the supply of blood to the brain, determines also the intensity of the 
attentive state and is an important condition of definite association 
and reinforcement. As related to affective states these phenomena 
are perhaps most conveniently discussed by W. H. Howell's Phys- 
iology and the briefer treatment of F. Arnold's Attention and 
Interest. 

Any adequate discussion of the neural process as determining 
the nature and growth of interest requires that recent conflicting 
theories of the apperceptive process be analyzed in the Hght of the 
most reliable behavioristic evidence. Such analysis is impossible 
here. Yet the nature of the inquiry may be suggested by the 
selection of the three widely accepted principles which McDougall 
declares to constitute the indispensible basis of physiological 
psychology; namely, the specific energies of sensory nerves, strict 
localization of cerebral functions, and the principle of association. ^ On 
the basis of these principles and their implications, the specific ener- 
gies, i.e., tendencies resulting from sensory or ideational stimulus, 
must occur in "the specific 'constitution of structural elements of 
the cerebral cortex that are capable of becoming associated together 

' c/. Thorndike, op. cit., pp. 120f. and C. S. Myers: "Introduction to Experi- 
mental Psychology," p. 107. 

^"Introduction to Physiological Psychologj^," pp. 58f. 



24 An Approach to the Syrtheiic 

when thrown into simultaneous action."^ The organization of these 
elements in functional groups, by which the nervous system evolves, 
is believed to consist in the formation and perfection of synapses 
which therefore determine both the direction and intensity of inter- 
est. This leads to a preliminary statement regarding the relation 
of feehng and knowledge, that intensity of the psychical process 
varies inversely with the complexity of neural organization, or knowl- 
edge. Psychical activity results when the resistance of the synapse 
to the neural current is high because of the novelty or infrequency 
of such currents — hence the affective value and interest in 
strong and unsual stimuli, surprise, etc. When the resistance of 
the particular synapses has been diminished by the frequent pass- 
age of the impulse, the intense psychic effect no longer appears. 
By voluntary reinforcement, however, impulses may be so directed 
through the complex systems of high intelligence that neither the 
resistance nor the resulting intensity is appreciably reduced. In this 
case the reinforcement merely functions with greater economy. 

As distinguishing the hypothetical stages of interest and result- 
ing from the successive development of neural arcs in systems of 
increasing complexity, three forms of reinforcement are implied: 
instinctive reaction to pleasure-pain, direct reproduction of neural sys- 
tems associated by temporal contiguity, and divergent reproduction of 
such systems through derived associations. Certain implications of 
each form affecting the expression of interest may be briefly noted. 

Highly stimulating objects, whether novel or sharply contrasted 
with the object in consciousness, can compel attention at all ages. 
In earliest childhood such objects produce and perfect the reflex move- 
ments whose control serves later to reinforce complex movements of the 
ideo-motor variety. Yet the state of involuntary attention result- 
ing almost entirely from organic factors, in which they first appear, 
is without ideal reinforcement and consequently of very brief duration. 
Some form of reinforcement must exist to explain the tenure of such 
objects for even the fixation time, and this is found in sensations of 
pleasure-pain. Reinforced by such sensations — whether of sight, 
sound, taste, movement, et al. — attention persists and reveals the 
forward reference tendency apparent * in higher forms of interest. 
In the case of mere sensory stimulation, the fact of attention may be 
ascribed to interest in the exercise of the organ stimulated. The 
stage of interest in such phenomena is accordingly quasi-organic or 

' Ibid. 



Study of Interest in Education 25 

experimental. It is distinguished by the vagueness or absence of 
conscious aim. 

Attention resulting from the factors of the cerebral level implies 
preperception, the ability to identify the object before consciousness 
with a mental image gained from former experience with it. Here 
the reinforcement results from association by temporal contiguity, 
which McDougall states "is the one and only form of association 
that can be explained physiologically."^ Attention to any one 
element of the ideal disposition tends to reproduce the whole of a 
former experience. Selection from incoming impressions is guided 
by the reinforcement of such impressions as are almost entirely 
familiar. The constellation of mental states before the situation 
has entered consciousness seeks control by diffusion of energy in the 
direction suggested by the most familiar element in the situation. 
Suggestion is particularly potent in the direction of interest because 
of the ease with which familiar elements are dissociated. Likewise 
imitation of other's acts and reproduction of the child's own activi- 
ties direct interest very largely and cause certain relationships to be 
taken-for-granted, thereby increasing the scope of interest. The 
stage implied by these processes may be termed the imitative or 
social stage as indicating tendencies to reproduce familiar experi- 
ence. It is distinguished by compUcations of experimental interest 
resulting from social relationships. The characteristic aim is social 
superiority. 

Reinforcement of voluntary attention is due largely to the complex 
interrelations in the neural systems of the frontal areas. The afferent 
impulse, instead of reproducing readily the constellations associated 
with it in time, diverges into a number of sub-systems related to the 
constellation. A conflict of tendencies results which can be resolved 
only by conscious deliberation. This successive inhibition of various 
means continues until an element of experience is revived which 
contains the solution or until the search fails. In the former case 
intermediate elements are referred to the ideo-motor processes and 
reinforced by temporal associations. In the latter case, the search 
is abandoned until the mind is recalled to the dilemma by dissatis- 
faction in the failure to control. In affective terms, the distinguishing 
feature of the process is desire for control through closer contact 
with reality as represented by previous experience. Expression of 
interest in this deliberative stage is characterized by mediation 

' Op. cil., p. 135. 



26 An Approach to the Synthetic 

between organic impulse and rational judgment. Sacrifice of either 
results in a repression of interest, the subject for a later discussion. 
F. M. Alexander's recent work, Man's Supreme Inheritance, suggests 
that the phenomena of repression result from dissociation of the 
'higher' from the 'lower' nervous centers. The implication is 
clearly that integration of neural function is essential to the most 
effective expenditure of effort, and the normal distribution of interest 
which such expenditure implies. Hence the deliberative stage of 
interest is distinguished by the variety of attitudes in which interest 
may find expression because of the numerous constellations in which 
thought of the given situation may occur. It is also marked by the 
tendency to act in certain interests which have become habitual. 

In summary, it may be observed that the reference to certain 
more prominent physiological factors of interest has been developed by 
the three-fold classification proposed (Chapter One, 4). Under 
these heads both external and internal conditions are related to the 
most conspicuous phenomena of interest in such manner as should 
best help the discussion to follow. Abstract and rather arbitrary 
classification is necessary in order to emphasize common elements 
in various explanations of the same phenomena, hence none but the 
most general features are examined. Otherwise it would be possible 
to select from the wide field of studies to determine variations in the 
behavior of individuals and groups which this discussion is forced 
largely to ignore. From the evidence at present available the chief 
characteristic of such mental variations is their continuity. The 
intermediate stages are far commoner than the extreme types. 
Variations in the development of interest, perhaps the least constant 
of all mental traits, can therefore be recorded only within the limits 
of general tendencies. 



Chapter Three. Development of Instinctive Interest 

The science of genetic psychology postulates that mature behavior 
is largely traceable to original instinctive endowment. Behavior at 
various stages is explained by reference to the stage preceding. It is 
clear, however, that such explanation is as yet by no means complete, 
nor can it be until an inventory of native traits is made to tally at all 
points with the main tendencies of later conduct. Pending scientific 
selection and description of such traits and tendencies, this complete 
explanation is clearly Utopian. One is thus forced to rely upon 
opinion both in selecting instinctive traits and in distinguishing those 
later tendencies which the traits serve to explain. The abundance 
of expert opinion regarding continuity of instinctive development 
must be sifted by the most reliable evidence available, which is 
probably to be found in the many accurate descriptions of particular 
responses under various prescribed conditions. 

Waddle states in this connection: "It is self evident that most of 
the interests are conditioned directly by instinctive emotional com- 
plexes. We cannot understand or anticipate interests, then, without 
an understanding of their inborn correlates."^ For this reason it is 
easier to identify and classify the more constant varieties of interest 
when the behavior examined is closely restricted to activities of 
biological origin, for here conformity is greatest. Yet it is important 
that this approach should not obscure the distinction it is intended to 
emphasize; namely, the distinction between the instinctive basis 
itself as inferred from the child's responses and later interest-behavior 
which includes other than instinctive elements. The instinct for 
mere motor activities, for example, while explaining the fact of 
interest in movements does little to explain the nature of such interest 
as determined by the various ends sought. Yet the more nearly cer- 
tain broad classes of interests, such as are indicated by the types before 
described, can be related to universal tendencies of instincts, the 
easier is it to mark off broad types of behavior in which related varie ties 
of interest can be identified. To assist this relation of interest to 

' "Child Psychology," p. 112. 

27 



28 An Approach to the Synthetic 

instinct, the present discussion ignores social and other environmental 
elements of interest so far as possible, by considering only such expres- 
sions as occur in solitary play. Of these the most useful accounts 
are probably found in such familiar works as Chamberlain's The 
Child, Groos' The Play of Man,^ and Preyer's The Mind of the Child. 
More particularized, and somewhat more scientific accounts of special 
forms of play are equally familiar in the various child-study pub- 
lications. It is unfortunate that space forbids any description of 
evidence upon which a conclusive study of instinctive interest must 
rely. For this the reader is referred to' certain original sources which 
illustrate the method of approach herein described. 

This restriction of the field to largely non-social behavior is helpful 
in confining the discussion to interests of the experimental stage. It has 
however the disadvantage of excluding the phenomena of imitation ap- 
pearing in the same period of development, which are reserved for later 
treatment as explaining social modifications of instinctive interest.^ 
Experimental interests find fullest expression in play for the reason 
that playful activities are performed per se. Their relation to instinc- 
tive tendencies is therefore most close. Hence differences in type of 
instinctive function may serve to distinguish corresponding forms of 
play in which the type of interest is determined most directly by the 
instinctive function. Related varieties of interest can most readily 
be identified in these forms of play because of their development from 
a common instinctive source. 

In most general terms, these types of instinctive function are two, 
the sensory and motor. By attaching sensory qualities to various 
objects instinct facilitates the satisfaction of organic needs, ^ and these 
responses to agreeable stimuli soon constitute the primary form of 
conscious play. The feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction is the 
source of all interest which later includes the progressive forms of 
feeling, affect, impulse, and desire.^ Playful sensory exercise may thus 
be selected as the form of behavior which results most directly from 
interest of the intrinsic type, and the various qualities possessed by the 
stimuli of these sensations may accordingly be regarded as varieties of 
such interest. Instinctive motor activity of a sort is implied in all 

1 Pp. 7-118 of this work are closely followed in the remaining discussion of this 
chapter and pp. 173-334 in that of the chapter following. 

^ I.e., the transition from private to public interest, cf. Baldwin, op. cit., p. 503. 

' cf. W. Mitchell: op. cit., p. 194. 

* Wundt: Philosophische Studien, 6: 380. 



study of Interest in Education 29 

sensations, which reveals an "instinctive manipulation of things, 
movements to or from them, persistence aji;ainst obstachis, and the rest- 
lessness that goes with a sense of want.""^ Tlu; pleasure of kinastlujtic 
sensation soon produces such movements playfully as ends in them- 
selves together with playful movements of foreign bodies. This 
second form of play is tlu; logical province of (ixperimental practical 
interest. In addition to these instinctive functions, a third may be 
predicated to account for the playful exercise of mcmtal powers that 
reveals an experimental cognitive interest. This function first appears 
in the instinctive adjustment of sense; organs to secure a fuller sen- 
sation. Its latei- jictivity in such plays as require the exercise of atten- 
tion, imagination, and rciason, as in guessing gam(;s, etc. is suffici(!ntly 
great to justify the third division. These three progressive forms 
of play activity thus closely relat(id to distinguishable instinctive 
functions and clearly evident in all children's behavior require further 
brief comment in turn. The purpose of this comment is to indicate 
hypothetically the conclusions which a truly scientific study of in- 
stinctive interest might reach both as to the gradual differentiation 
of types of interest in this behavior and the more conspicuous varieties 
in each type. 

The conspicuous varieties of intrinsic interest may be supposed to 
extend from undifferentiated pleasure-pain sensations through such 
qualities as intensity, novelty, contrast, movement, repetition, 
rhythm, — and to culminate in states of aesthetic absorption.^ While 
the order is mainly conjectural, it is supported by such accounts 
of progressive response to the various sensations as is offered by 
Groos. Intensity, novelty, and contrast are qualities which serve to 
explain expressions of interest in all sensations but chiefly in those of 
contact, sight, sound, and smell.'' Movement is of course here confined 
to visual sensations and results from the biological importance of 
attention to changes in environment. Interest in repetition appears 
chiefly in productive sound sensations. Rhythm as observed in the 
movements of others is interesting on account of the muscular inner- 
vations involved. Rhythmic sounds, from the watch-tick to band 
music, and melody at about four years, both excitf! a lively interest 

' Mitchell, op. ciL, p. 105. 

' Absorption is here interpreted as originally defined by Th. Lipps: Zur Ein- 
fiihlung, Leipsig, 1913. It implies absorption in the stimulus, not with the stim- 
lus as in the fixed idea. 

* cf. Preyer: op. cit., Chapter I. 



30 A?i Approach to the Synthetic 

which is due largely to mild hypnosis.^ In absorption this phe- 
nomenon is more apparent and is treated elsewhere in connection with 
inner imitation. 

The gradual transition to the practical type may be illustrated 
by interest in the production of vocal sounds. From the mere acoustic 
sensation interest develops in overcoming the difficulty of articulation. 
This evolution of motor from sensory interest is typical of all playful 
behavior. From this point the normal varieties of practical interest 
may be tentatively listed as conquest-of-obstacles, control, pursuit, 
combativeness, outer-imitation or reproduction, and rivaliy, — all 
culminating in achievement of highly particularized nature which is 
characteristic of all practical interest. As best expressed in playful 
bodily movements and movements of external objects, interest in 
conquest-of-obstacles appears in early attempts to sit, stand, or walk. 
This comes rapidly to include control and pursuit motives^ as in passive 
movements of coasting or in runs, hill-climbing, and hide-and-seek 
games.' Interest in control often renders such vocations as seaman- 
ship, fire fighting, and horse racing most attractive during the years 
9-13.* Combative instincts bear much the same relation to interest 
in many forms of destructive or analytic play as outer imitation bears 
to constructive interest in mud-pies, snow-men, and even in collections.^ 
Rivalry is evident in such collecting as in all behavior at the appropri- 
ate age. Its treatment as allied with interest in superiority is deferred 
to the later discussion of social interest. On the whole this relation 
between intrinsic and practical interest suggests the biological expla- 
nation of a familiar fact; namely, that motivation consists in the 
response to intrinsic stimulation which provokes voluntary effort 
toward a desired end. Such effort is rendered efficient by practical 
interest in achievement. 

Experimental varieties of cognitive interest, as appearing in play- 
ful exercise of mental powers, may occur in recognition, expectancy, 
reproduction, reconstruction, curiosity, experiment, and — less clearly 
observed at this stage — investigation and judgment. As Kirkpatrick 
states, "If interests depended only upon the biologically useful in- 

" cf. Gates: "Musical Interests of Children," Journal of Pedagogy, 2: 265-284. 

* "No activity is interesting unless it follows the pursuit pattern," Jennings: 
" Suggestions of Modern Science," p. 164. 

» cf. J. Lee, op. cit., Chapter 26. 

*cf. Crosswell, op. cit. 

^ cf. Groos, op. cit., pp. 99ff. and Burk "Children's Collections," Ped. Setn., 
7: 179-207. 



Study of Interest in Education 31 

stincts, there could be but little development of intellectual interest."' 
Yet it is only by instinctive exercise of mental powers in expression 
of practical interest that capacity for the so called "higher" interests is 
developed. Interest in the "warmth and intimacy" of mere recogni- 
tion and also in expectancy may be termed wholly instinctive.'- The 
memorizing and reproduction of nonsense syllables, etc. is largely of 
practical interest in the mere achievement, though some cognitive 
interest is implied. Interest in playful use of the imagination appears 
in reconstruction of past experience for indulgence in all forms of make- 
believe, as in stories told by and to children.' Curiosity, while at 
first seeking novel impressions rather than meaning for later use, 
marks the rise of real cognitive interest in the exercise of reason.'* 
In plays with riddl(!S, puzzles, tormenting animals, etc. interest passes 
from the post hoc to the propter hoc*^ and still later to plays with the 
feelings as in games of self-control and endurance and also in ghost 
stories.'' Purposeful investigation and judgment involving higher 
physiological development need merely be mentioned as later forms of 
cognitive interest. The significant feature of cognitive interests 
is their brief duration in the pure type. When once expression is 
fairly under way other elements enter in to render the interest practical 
or even intrinsic. 

These instinctive or experimental varieties of interest expressed in 
comparatively universal forms of behavior are next to be considered 
in their social complexity — as modified by processes of environmental 
adjustment. 

' " Individual in the Making," p. 18. 

^ Groos, op. cit., p. 125, finds humor resulting from impeded recognition. 

' J. Lee, op. cit., passim; Barnes: "Studies in Education," I and 11. 

* cf. J. Welton: "Psychology of Education," p. 209; and Henderson: "Prin- 
ciples of Education," p. 254. 

* Davis: "Interest in the Causal Idea," Child Study Monthly, 2: 226. 

' Groos, op, cit., pp. 169ff. and Brewer: "Instinctive Interest in Bear and Wolf 
Stories," Amer. Ass'n. for Advance of Science, Proceed., XVII. 



Chapter Four. Social Modification of Interest 

We have here to consider a second stage in the normal develop- 
ment of interest. Yet while the distinction between stages is largely- 
genetic, as implying progressive development of primary biological 
tendencies, the present discussion must also trace from early child- 
hood certain environmental influences which modify these tendencies. 
Such social influences as are implied by various forms of imitation 
and suggestion, both modify and select organic impulses at every 
age. It is accordingly important to note the effect of such influences 
upon the expression of adolescent interests and the consequent modifi- 
cation of types as previously described. 

The significance of this new approach lies in the nature of the 
learning process. For the infant the purpose achieved and the knowl- 
edge gained are purely incidental products of the course of interesting 
action, performed experimentally for its own sake. Instinct provides 
the occasion and interest initiates the action. Similarly when the 
actions of others are reproduced, there must be postulated an acquired 
instinct* for imitation consisting of a fusion of such organic instincts 
as respond to occasions possessing qualities known as suggestive. ^ 
Imitation implies that another's actions are of interest in themselves. 
Their reproduction by the observer leads to recognition of the purpose 
and so to interest in the result. He thus rises from sensory to percep- 
tual imitation and, when the model is absent, to conceptual imitation. 
Hence imitation regarded as a "social" instinct modifies experimental 
interests by rendering certain actions habitual and causing their ends to 
be taken-for-granted, so that learning proceeds with greater economy. 
Such modification occurs chiefly through the agencies of inner imita- 
tion or sympathetic insight, outer imitation, and suggestion, which 
facilitates both. Each of these agencies may be briefly noticed in turn. 

Keatinge classifies imitative behavior under the headings of 
instinctive, conscious, and purposive, — the last including acts per- 

* Not an inherited instinct, c/. W. McDougall, " Social Psychology," pp. 
90ff; Ribot, " Psychologie des Sentiments," note 1, p. 238, 

* c/, Keatinge's list, "Suggestion in Education," p. 56. 

82 



Study of Interest in Education 33 

formed per se, for practical ends, and for reasons of self-esteem.^ 
Instinctive or inner imitation differs from other forms both in function 
and in earlier appearance. Its function, in a word, is to bring about 
conformity to certain situations by inhibiting instinctive tendencies to 
dominate them. Such reactions are thus largely adaptive, as contrasted 
with the aggressive varieties of interest hitherto considered. These 
phenomena of instinctive imitation are conveniently classified as 
fellow-feeling with man (einfiihlung), fellow-feeling with nature and 
absorption in the object (einsfiihlung).- Since the process in each 
of these forms is relatively similar, the first alone may serve to explain 
the rise of interest in conformity. Fellow-feeling arises from the 
infant's response to differences in personality. ''As early as the 
second month it distinguishes its mother's or its nurse's touch in 
the dark. It learns characteristic methods of holding, taking up, 
patting, and adapts itself to these personal variations. It is quite a 
different thing from the child's behavior toward things which are not 
persons."^ By this awareness the child distinguishes between himself 
and others. Certain feelings associated with self are then attributed 
to others when they perform corresponding movements. Thus feelings 
of self and of other are mutually dependent. The adaptive self shares 
in the personality of others by assuming their attitudes so far as these 
have meaning from his own experience. He appreciates differences in 
such attitudes by virtue of his practical interest. To certain attitudes, 
those of his elders, he must at times submit. Those of his juniors, he 
may usually dominate. Practical interest in situations beyond his 
control is best realized by conformity and in other situations by 
aggression. The resulting action in childhood is merely the motor 
expression of a certain combination of elements and is entirely without 
moral significance.^ Yet moral interest can only arise from the need 
of conformity to various social situations. The further development 
of this interest in conformity may now be traced. 

At about the fourth year the child learns to identify his own 
reactions to situations beyond his control with others' reactions to 
situations within his control. He recognizes that certain of his own 
interests are shared by others. Conscious recognition of his own 
interest as seeking certain ends must allow others the privilege of seek- 

1 Ibid., p. 86 

2 Most satisfactorily perhaps by Baldwin, Lipps, and Mitchell, op. cit. 

3 Baldwin, "Mental Development in Child and Race," p. 335. 

* See Lee, op. cit., p. 240 regarding "the moral necessity of disobedience." 



34 An Approach to the Synthetic 

ing the same ends. At this stage his acts become socially significant. 
When the legitimate interests of others are opposed, he perceives 
that the other must feel as he does in such cases, and his sense of 
justice is accordingly offended. By fellow-feeling with the group 
he takes over their interests as his own and accepts their standards 
for himself to some degree. Here begins the compromise of the 
social life, — the adaptation of the group to his personal interests and 
the adjustment of these interests to the standards of the group. ^ 
This community of interest explains loyalty as the pursuit of one's 
own interests when these are sought by the group as a whole. As 
the group is progressively widened from the family to the playmate, 
the gang, the school, the town, etc., each new interest is first opposed 
by and then admitted to the fellowship of interests which at the time 
have become habitual. This equaUty of group interests implies the 
moral sense. Loyalty to group involves some sacrifice of conflicting 
personal interest. The satisfactions of successful conformity to 
group interests make the individual reluctant to aggress when the 
opportunity offers. Fidelity to certain personal standards of conduct 
is the condition of all group membership, which practical interest in 
superiority obliges him to retain. Such recognition of common 
interests further indicates the rise of purposeful conduct since the 
type of interest is determined by the social requirements of the 
situation. Whereas the expression of experimental interests is directed 
by necessity, social interest is largely regulated by success. 

Such interest in conformity is well illustrated by the formation 
of clubs. The subordination of the individual is complete as is also 
his obedience to the "natural" leader, who holds his supremacy by 
power to express such interests as are most intense within the group 
as a whole. Membership implies a common sentiment against the 
offender, sympathy for the unfortunate members, and the preserving 
of group identity by special insignia, conventions, etc. Such deference 
to the group becomes universahzed in fashion, — a conformity to the 
dictates of society in the large. Activities performed by the group 
intensify interest more than proportionately to the aggregate of 
individual interests expressed. Hence convention requires certain 
attitudes receiving group sanction to be taken-f or-granted ; thus 

» This compromise is termed by Baldwin " the interest of learning." " It brings 
about through imitation, absorption, and trial, the progressive modification of 
personal habit in conformity to developing social ends." Thought and Things, III, 
p. 124. 



Study of Interest in Education 35 

modifying to some degree the natural expression of individual 
interest. 

Returning to the conscious and purposive forms of outer imitation, 
we have to note the process by which certain experimental interests 
are selected for continued expression in the group. This process 
differs from the fellow-feeling just considered in that reproduction 
of another's actions does not imply reproduction of his thought. 
Such acts as are consciously reproduced are performed as a means of 
greater achievement and hence of greater social superiority. Aggres- 
sive attitudes are the rule and adaptive attitudes are taken only 
when such are necessary for continued self-expression. Yet with 
theoretical difference in function, the effects of both imitative processes 
are similar in that each gives rise to aggressive and adaptive interests. 
Hence inner and outer imitation are complementary, are instinctive 
in origin, and develop simultaneously. Some examples of experi> 
mental practical interests as expressed in group play may serve to 
illustrate this selective function of outer imitation more clearly. 

Participation in playful or angry contests seldom appears before 
the third year and then usually in the form of feeble wrestling, yet a 
two year old shows pleasure in striking someone who pretends to be 
hurt.^ Shortly after the third year this interest in superiority is 
revealed in all group play. Wrestling, shoving, racing, and all kinds 
of competitive games show that the fight is an end in itself .^ The same 
interest lies in all resistance to authority, contradiction of elders and 
equals, and in such mental contests as board and card games when 
the element of chance is excluded. In games of pure rivalry, 
the fight interest is heightened by the feeling of jealousy. Interest 
in superiority here seeks the distinction of leadership; first, because 
others want it, and also because of the praise which recognition of 
superiority entails. Emulation differs from jealousy in that admiration 
is sought rather than love and often takes the form of boasting. 
"To lift heavier weights, to throw farther, to run faster, to jump 
higher, to make a top spin longer, to stay longer under water . . . 
is the burning wish of every childish heart."' Other varieties of 
interest in superiority occur in teasing and in assuming provocative 
attitudes towards those who may not be insulted by words.* Closely 

' Groos, op. cit., p. 174. 

» O'Shea, " Interest in Childhood," Child Studxj Monthly, 1 1 : 266-278. 

* Groos, op. cit., p. 199. 

* cf. Chamberlain, op. cit., pp. 262ff. 



36 An Approach to the Synthetic 

related is interest in the practical joke. The perpetrator has interest 
first in superiority to and then in fellow-feeling with the victim. 

Such familiar behavior emphasizes the significance of interest in 
superiority, the social expression of experimental interest in achieve- 
ment. The fact that in children this interest can find expression only 
in the society of equals renders it a powerful esprit de corps. Thus 
even the aggressive self implies an indirect group interest. Social 
recognition requires that certain personal achievements find favor 
with the group, and aggressive interests so sanctioned tend rapidly 
to become habitual, largely determining the child's early ambitions 
and ideals.' Outer imitation may produce interest either in the activ- 
ity itself or in its result. The former involves intellectual experiment 
and the latter rivalry. Thus while outer imitation, like fellow-feeling, 
requires adaptation to group interest and hence the pursuit of social ends, 
its chief function is to select certain aggressive interests which in certain 
situations may safely be pursued to the end of personal superiority. 

Before considering the theoretical effect of these phenomena upon 
the expression of experimental types of interest, the function of 
suggestion deserves comment. While suggestion no doubt offers a 
fairly adequate explanation of all imitative behavior, its separate 
treatment emphasizes the means by which imitation can be objectively 
controlled. Various qualities which render an idea suggestive, such 
as mass, break in continuity, expectedness, intelligibility, and pleasant- 
ness, are common to varieties of experimental interest. These 
qualities accordingly render any activity attractive, and the instinc- 
tive response thus produced accounts for imitation no less than other 
behavior. Yet the distinguishing feature of the suggested imitative 
response is its prepotency over other more habitual responses. Keat- 
inge's definition explains this prepotency in terms of interest-intensity: 
" A suggestive idea is one which exercises a disintegrating (dissociative) 
influence on the mind in such a way that critical and inhibitory ideas 
are rendered ineffective. . . The suggestive idea, while it need 
not be independent of knowledge, leads straight to action or 
belief."^ Hence in neural terms the suggestive idea takes possession 
either by directly stimulating involuntary attention through sense 
appeal or by such non-voluntary reinforcement of previous dispositions 

'c/. Darrah, Popular Sc. Monthly, 53:88; Monroe, Education, 18:259; Jegi, 
Tram. Illinois Society for Child Study, .3:131-144; Taylor, Report State Sup'tof 
N. Y., 18U6; Barrios, Studies in Education, passim. 

* op cit., p. 64. 



Study of Interest in Education 37 

that conflicting tendencies are inhibited. Certain typical conditions 
are evident. First, an idea becomes suggestive when its very remote- 
ness from existing ideas is the fact attended to — witness the conjuror's 
movements and the emphatic statement of the orator who "takes his 
audience by storm." Second, the idea must avoid association with 
conflicting impressions and find association so far as possible, with 
favorable impressions. Also while the suggestion may be compatible 
with prevalent ideas, it must avoid over-emphasis. The effect of 
certain advertisements and of much class-room advice is often the 
opposite of the effect intended. A third condition is the subject's 
attitude toward the suggester, who should be trusted, loved, or feared. 
Confidence and love imply the medium of common interests, which 
alone tends to repress unfavorable associations. Fear carries con- 
viction by sheer intensity of reinforcement. While the complexities 
of the dissociative process in suggestion are scarcely intimated by 
this summary, the outline should indicate the role of suggestion as a 
factor of social interest and something as to its relation to other 
factors discussed elsewhere. It should also be noted that, however 
offered, suggestion assists learning only in so far as the suggested im- 
pression is confirmed by voluntary effort of attention. Otherwise, as 
in hypnosis, interest in the new is transient and ineffective because 
unassociated with the old. 

Behavioristic studies of adolescent interests in general have as yet 
established little more than the fact that such interests are the most 
diverse. No valid criteria exist to determine the relative frequency 
of various nascent social interests. All attempts to correlate such 
tendencies with instinctive impulse on the one hand and with mature 
behavior on the other must consequently rely on the consensus of 
theoretical opinion. To this end the simplest course will be to 
indicate somewhat schematically such sub-divisions in the types of 
instinctive interest as must in theory result from social modifications 
outlined in this chapter. Theoretically, then, each type contains 
two such sub-divisions distinguished by aggressive and adaptive social 
attitudes, — the former implying extrinsic interest in the situation 
itself as being of near or ultimate usefulness, and the latter implying 
an intrinsic interest in thought of the situation as being of such a 
nature.^ Extrinsic interest thus regards the situation as a means of 

1 Intrinsic interest should not be confused with "purely intrinsic" interest, the 
term applied to the unmodified type of experimental interest in mere indulgence of 
feeling. The distinctions here made are taken directly from W. Mitchell's analysis, 
op. cit., pp. 6.5-70. 



38 An Approach to the Synthetic 

realizing primary interest in any of the three types whose end may be 
either agreeable feeling, or desirable action, or meaning applicable to 
conduct. Intrinsic interest regards the situation as an end on account 
of the nature of the feelings, acts, or thoughts immediately involved. 
The character of these modifications may be suggested as effecting 
each type. 

As applied to the practical type, we have seen that individual 
interest may become socialized either by becoming partly identified 
with that of the group, so as better to make use of a particular situa- 
tion or by partial conflict with that of the group, which involves 
thought of the situation and justice to the interests of others con- 
cerned. The former experience expresses the extrinsic or purely 
practical interest in the utility of the situation as means to an end and 
includes such aggressive varieties as pursuit, emulation, rivalry, et al. 
The latter expresses the intrinsic or moral interest in the situation as 
it is thought or as an end in itself, and includes such adaptive varieties 
as obedience, loyalty, self-control, consistency to personal standards, 
et al. This interest also perceives such qualities as bravery, deceit- 
fulness, and cowardice as these affect conduct, for this is a strictly 
practical consideration when applied to others. 

Cognitive interest in a perplexing situation instead of seeking the 
acquirement of knowledge as such, may seek to understand it as 
affecting future conduct. Interest attempts to relate the situation 
to habitual experience and place it in the system in which it belongs, 
as in the discovery that drunkards may be good men and preachers 
the reverse. Such interest of the extrinsic sort may be termed 
rational. This is related to objects as real, as having a certain iden- 
tity. When the intrinsic interest is exclusively vested in the know- 
ledge itself, it may be termed purely theoretical. It implies "interest 
in a truth which a thought claims or seeks." This close relation 
between moral and rational interests as distinct from the purely 
practical and theoretical, suggests the normal distribution of social 
interest regardless of type. The latter forms may represent the 
survival of selected experimental interest in the social stage. 

Because of the primacy of purely intrinsic interest in all experience, 
the intrinsic elements of the practical and cognitive types constitute 
social modifications of the purely intrinsic type. When absorbed 
in a situation — whether in landscape, music, or drama — our interest 
is expressed largely in the indulgence of feeling, and this element, 
the aesthetic, is therefore constant. When interest seeks only abstrac- 



Study of Interest in Education 39 

tion from reality, the experimental interest in pure sensation is con- 
tinued without appreciable change. Yet surrender to feelings because 
of their relation to reality implies the introduction of a relatively 
extrinsic element. Thus contemplation of the character of Jesus 
may produce in the man of piety a state of absorption in which his 
own moral interest in self-sacrifice for the many becomes the occasion 
for the affective indulgence. The philosopher may in the same in- 
stance be absorbed in the theoretical significance of self-realization. 
Hence the subdivisions of the purely intrinsic type may consist of 
aesthetic, moral, and theoretical interests. 

Social interests imply a certain degree of physical maturity, for 
one reason in that development of the ductless glands is connected 
with control of emotional reactions. Hence from the time when 
aggressive interests are first to some degree identified with adap- 
tive interests, normal development implies the increasing control of 
the latter until an approximate balance is reached. Thereafter be- 
havior is directed by such interests as are rendered habitual by success- 
ful expression in the particular environment. Certain phenonema 
of such expression are next to be considered. 



Chapter Frvio. Social Expression of Interest 

The varieties of social behavior are identical with life itself and 
as such defy classification by means hitherto employed. For 
this reason the following description of the approach to a study of 
habitual interest makes no attempt to correlate specific phenomena, 
but instead seeks to indicate certain tendencies that govern the later 
expression of interests already distinguished. More concretely, we 
are to consider the nature of certain reactions to success and failure 
in environmental adjustment. The effect of these reactions is under- 
stood to determine the balance between aggressive and adaptive 
interests by which habitual attitudes and, in a sense, character become 
established. 

That all growth and hence all behavior depends essentially upon 
the interaction of aggressive and adaptive attitudes variously defined, 
is well supported by both scientific and empirical evidence.^ While 
the two attitudes are present as common elements in most situations, 
there are other situations in which one attitude may find expression 
to the practical exclusion of the other. The freshman from a provin- 
cial high school must for the most part conform to the new demands 
of university life. In his senior year aggressive interests may seek 
more fully to realize personal superiority: yet their fullest expression 
is resisted by various social influences whose existence has been 
taken-for-granted. This familiar experience suggests that the ratio 
of aggressive and adaptive interests explaining the individual's behav- 
ior in particular situations, is determined by the degree of such 
resistance. 

The use of the term "resistance" in connection with the expres- 
sion of social interest at once suggests the application of psychoan- 
alytic theory. Quite apart from its still discredited practice and 
most of the sex diagnosis involved,- the central notion of this theory 
contains much of approved value. Such indirect applications as 
have been made in the fields of industry by the late Carleton Parker 
and A. H. Southard among others, in medicine by numerous British 

* c/. Brewer: "The Vocational Guidance Movement," p. 105. 
2c/. McDougall, "Social PsychologJ^" pp. .394ff. 

40 



Study of Interest in Education 41 

and American psychiatrists chiefly in connection with war neuroses, 
and still more recently in education by the English writers, H. C. 
Cameron,^ C. W. Kimmins,^ and St. G. F. Pitt^ — have largely vin- 
dicated the underlying principles as helpful approaches to problems 
of social readjustment. It may further be noted that the effect of 
many excellent critical treatments has been'' to remove the arbi- 
trary distinction formerly made between normal and abnormal cases. 
While unquestionably the value of the remedy depends upon the 
abnormality of the case, it is widely recognized that the same pheno- 
mena appear in the so called normal cases to some degree. Confi- 
dence is therefore justified in such clearly operative principles as apply 
to the social expression of interest. 

Fundamental in this notion of the unconscious is the view that all 
mental activity implies a life impulse, variously defined, which is 
the force that reveals itself as interest. "It is with the utilization, 
expression, and application of interest that the unconscious continu- 
ally concerns itself. "^ By virtue of this biological source, the interest 
thus seeking expression is essentially instinctive and hence aggres- 
sive in nature. In situations beyond control, the expression of such 
interest is clearly impossible. It is resisted by the actual conditions 
that exist or, in a word, by reality. From this dilemma there are two 
means of escape; either the resistance may be overcome by such 
modification of interest as will bear social expression and hence con- 
form to reality, or the resistance is not overcome. The anti-social 
interest persists in the unconscious at variance with reality, and 
conduct is out of aUgnment. Such forgotten "repressed" interest is 
thus a source of mental unrest which seeks comfort in the false assump- 
tion that its ends have actually been realized. The unsuccessful 
portrait painter, for instance, persuades himself that he has achieved 
a master piece, — by way of compensation for his failure. These 
phenomena of resistance and of compensation need to be considered 
in slightly greater detail as affecting habitual expression of interest. 

' " The Nervous Child." 

* " Children's Dreams." 

5 " The Purpose of Education." 

* For example, the aeries of articles published in the London Times Educational 
Supplement commencing May 27, 1920. 

* M. Nicoll, op. cit., p. 83; see also W. A. White, " Mechanisms of Character 
Formation," pp. 118ff. for distinction between interest in directed and undirected 
thinking. 



42 An Approach to the Synthetic 

The fact has been emphasized that the experience of resistance 
overcome is the occasion for all learning.^ Opposition to ideas taken- 
for-granted means the thwarting of an expectation upon which interest 
depends, hence the mind is temporarily at sea. The error requires a 
return to the familiar from which a later excursion into the unknown 
may profit by the earlier experience. By this means the child arrives 
at certain distinctions fundamental to the concept of reality. The 
first experience of resistance to physical effort teaches the distinction 
between self and world and forms perceptions of various objects. 
Resistance to these perceptions and thoughts of objects teaches the 
distinction between experience and reality and gives conceptions of 
general truth. A much later form of resistance that violates these 
conceptions may be supposed to yield the intellectual discipline which 
anticipates failure by previous reflection. By this evolution from 
lower to higher forms, resistance when successfully over-come is the 
means of continually closer contact with reality and of the normally 
distributed interest this contact implies. The many recent appli- 
cations of this principle to education in particular fields, of which Helen 
Marot's The Creative Impulse in Industry is typical, deserve study in 
this connection. 

The degree of repression, i.e. of failure to overcome such resistance, 
depends upon the extent to which personal interests are in conflict with 
or dissociated from group interests. There are various causes for 
such dissociation. 2 Perhaps the first to appear is the resistance of 
external conditions, which may be of such nature as either to prevent 
the continuance of an instinctive activity or to prevent its performance 
when required by further development. Such instances as the art 
lover's removal to a city without galleries, the financier's loss of 
capital by a turn in the market, and the scholar's loss of manuscript 
may illustrate repressions in each type of interest resulting from the 
former cause. The latter is illustrated by the younger boy's reluctance 
to enter games with his elders. As distinct from these external factors, 
repression may result from the moral interest or loyalty, which denies 
expression to legitimate interests from a mistaken sense of propriety. 
An example may be found in the group prejudice against the ''grind" 
which opposes his practical interest to excel in school work. The re- 
sulting conflict between loyalty to the group and obedience to authority 

' W. Mitchell, op. oil., p. 64. 

2 As distinguished by O. Pfister, "Psychoanalytic Method," Chap. V. 



Study of Interest in Education 43 

can normally have but one outcome, — the group triumphs. This dis- 
taste for authority as such is characteristic of all aggressive interest; 
hence the value of problem methods which avoid emphasis of the pupils, 
inferiority. In contrast to this preventive aspect, moral interest 
becomes a repressing factor in its punishing aspect. A conflict takes 
place between the unsocial interest expressed in the act and the 
inhibited social interest. The resulting psychic disturbance may lead 
either to another act of expiation or to repressing the fact of the 
misdeameanor. The pretense of virtue as a cloak to irregular conduct 
is thus the direct result of the guilt, since both thought and appearance 
of it are repressed: — witness Lady Macbeth, the proverbial instance 
of unconscious justification. 

In "compensation" we have to consider a universial tendency 
of mind to disguise failures in adjustment to reality whether these 
result from the above typical causes or from others. Essentially the 
theory involved agrees with the metaphysics of Emerson's classic 
essay, yet it is entirely distinct from the "theory of compensation" 
as known to quantitative psychology. The latter in effect maintains 
that marked superiority in certain lines of achievement is usually offset 
by inferiority in others — a fallacy revealed by Thorndike.^ As here 
used the term refers strictly to relative differences. Its nature appears 
in the universal tendency to exaggerate slightly one's income, social 
status, abilities, and other interests imperfectly realized. Such com- 
pensatory illusions, commonly known as "fantasy," have both favor- 
able and unfavorable effects upon behavior. In childhood the fantasy 
is largely protective. The more sensitive the mind, the greater is 
the need for illusion to reduce the shock of reality. While in maturity 
this function sometimes serves the same purpose, as in reducing the 
shock of a sudden loss which otherwise might cause insanity, — its 
effects are usually undesirable. These effects are commonly described 
in the extreme forms of introversion and extroversion, ^ the former 
indicating an undercompensated type of behavior in which fantasy is 
not active enough, and the latter an overcompensated type in which 
the fantasy is too active.^ The nature and extent of such fantasy 
are best determined when consciousness is unfocussed — whether bj^ 

* op. cit., p. 301. 

■ )ATiite, op. dt., pp. 217£f. compares these terms with numerous other equiva- 
lents. 

' For helpful illustrations from school situations see Long: Psychoanalysis in 
Relation to the Child. Journal of Experimental Pedagogy (London), June, 1917. 



44 



An Approach to the Synthetic 



sleep, fatigue, drugs, or other agencies.^ Introversion then implies a 
preoccupation with self which renders adaptation most difficult. 
"Interest persistently turns inwards, away from the contact of the 
world, and finds its easiest and most natural utilization in thought." 
Fear plays an important part in its impulses which tend toward self 



Under-compenjiatlng interesit in self 




Figur. T»o. Illu.tratlng ih« 8ocUll,lng Effect 

of RtsiBtanc* upon Aggresilve Interest. 

Explanation: 

A,li,i',D,K indicate degrees of resistanoo as normally distributed. 

A indicat(;H stage of inaxiinmn resistance to aggressive interests. Failure to realize 
is larg(ily coniponsatod by fantasy of success. 

li indicat(!S stages of normal introversion. Resistance to aggressive interests is par- 
tially <)V(!rcomo by conscious effort. 

(J indicates the ideal moan between intrinsic and extrinsic interests about which 
compensation centers. 

D indicates stage of normal extroversion. Easy conformity to social interests only 
slightly compensated by fantasy and largely confirmed'by actual success. 

E indicates stage of minimum resistance to aggressive interests implying successful 
adaptation by whicii these interests are confirmed. 

criticism and against emotional betrayal. The extrovert on the con- 
trary accepts social interests spontaneously and without question. 
His life is largely superficial, but gains in breadth what it lacks in 
depth. It reveals a maximum of vigorous and impulsive feeling with 
a minimum of thought and reflection. 

Between these widely opposed extremes the degrees of compen- 
sation are normally distributed, as indicated in Figure Two. From 

' Most advantageously perhaps by day dreams, cf. J. Adams, ibid, March, 
1914 and Thomdike, Educ. Psych. (1910) p. 50; and occasionally by choice of read- 
ing; Hall, Fed. Sem., 9:99 and Bell and Sweet, Journal of Educ. Psych., 7:39-45. 



study of Interest in Education 45 

this it will be inferred that when equal in degree the combined effects 
of self-interest and social interest are most to be desired, as implying 
the successful but effortful over-coming of resistance which is the 
condition of fullest development. Hence abnormality in expression 
of habitual interest, leading to dementia praecox in the one case and 
to paranoia in the other, is seen to result when either adaptive social 
interest or aggresive self-interest becomes overbalanced. By reference 
to the types of social interest (see p. 'M) it will be noted that social 
interest for the introvert consists in preoccupation with his duties 
to society. External resistance is largely successful aud his interest 
lies habitually in thought of situations to be met. It is therefore 
intrinsic and finds expression in the aesthetic, moral, and theoretical 
elements of this type. Moral issues are very significant, whatever 
standards may be, and social adjustment is achieved by force of 
intellectual grasp. On account of this self-critical tendency, a recog- 
nized deficiency in performance is likely to be overcome by persistent 
effort, after the manner of the poor student who l>ecomes the successful 
teacher. The many exceptions to this course quite naturally result 
from the relative infrequency of this intrinsic social interest in its 
pure expression. For the extrovert, the effect of whose experience and 
mental disposition is such as largely to negate resistance, expression 
occurs in the extrinsic elements, — the purely practical and the rational. 
The ease of adjustment renders each situation primarily the means for 
continued instinctive expression. Hence moral issues are unlikely 
to arise and when they do they are decided by the standards of the 
moment. While the resulting inconsistency is opposed to social 
integration, such behavior illustrates the teaching of "conflict psy- 
chology" with respect to mental hygiene; namely, "express (!V(!ry pain- 
ful situation in a social way." "To know the better and follow the 
worse indicates a healthier state of mind . . . than that possessed 
by the individual whose ill-doing springs from repressed unconscious 
motives."' Y(!t in all bcihavior a purposeful overcoming of resistance 
is the best means of compromise between intrinsic and extrinsic 
social interest on which capacity for both moral and rational conduct 
depends. Hence in the standardized adjustment of resistance to 
meet individual needs lie the hopes of efficient education and of 
psychotherapy. 

While this description of extreme types may have obscured the 
' c/. Lawrence, TIh; Thef)ry of R(!pression and Character. Journal of Experi- 
mental Pedagogy (London), Dec, 1916, p. 62. 



40 An Approach Lo the Synlhelic 

intoi'voiiinfj; (tascis to whicli il,K usi^ful iniorprotation must apply, such 
plan of ti'catrncril, is probably i-h(! best approach to the study of resis- 
tance aiul its (>rf('cts upon habitual social interest. A final chapter 
indicat(^s ccrlaiii jnotivatinji; principles irnplicul in previous discussion 
and HU|>;fj;(!sts <'orres|)onding liypotlu^ses more; capable of conclusive 
experiment. 



Chapter Six. Educational Implications 

Any discussion of the means by which various forms of interest 
can be objectively controlled presupposes the ability to detect these 
interests in the individual's behavior. As implied throughout previous 
discussion, these forms of interest should be distinguished by the ends 
sought in a particular environment. In the attempt to distinguish 
these forms by congenital capabilities, the suggested classification 
by types, etc. is obviously too broad to be serviceable. It is therefore 
necessary that each capability be rated by thorough clinical exam- 
ination before the individual's "educability" or chance of attaining 
these ends can be definitely known.* Interests themselves are 
inferred both from (1) subjective estimates based on observation of 
various expressions and (2) quantitative estimates based on obser- 
vation in measurable performances. Both approaches include many 
useful methods which might well be discussed in connection with 
former analysis, yet such discussion may not be entered here. Instead 
it may prove sufficient to note certain assumptions involved in the 
discussion to follow. 

The first of these postulates that the interest most profitably 
diagnosed should mediate between momentary preferences and uni- 
formly permanent tendencies of original nature. The relative ele- 
ment is necessary to indicate the point of approach; the absolute 
element to prevent reliance upon mere caprice. That interest in 
the given individual which best serves the educational purpose may 
therefore be roughly indicated by the ends in a given environment 
which he habitually puts forth most effort to attain and with which 
he habitually identifies himself. Thus defined, it is evident that 
all methods which require accurate observation of behavior are 
valuable. It is further necessary to emphasize the distinction between 
the use of various methods to discover interests and their use to direct 
interests. Even by quantitative tests of competencies, it is often 
possible to direct interest toward a previously distasteful activity 

' For helpful classification and description of these capabilities see H. J. Hump- 
stone: The Analytical Diagnosis. The Psychological Clinic, May 15, 1919. 

47 



48 An Approach to the Synthetic 

by convincing the subject that he has the required ability.^ The 
effective means of rating "dynamic quaUties" by observation pro- 
posed by Rugg^ is devised with this end directly in view. Its impor- 
tant features are two: the self-improvement of students through 
self-rating, and measurement by direct comparison. The latter is 
the most reliable form of subjective estimate. While the use of such 
score cards does not eliminate prejudice, it does much to define the 
qualities estimated and to reduce the liability of error, as shown by 
occasional correlations between subjective and quantitative ratings 
of the so-called measurable traits.^ When interest is observed in 
its most spontaneous expression as in dramatics, athletics, and other 
extra-curriculum activities, such ratings become highly reliable. 
The value of quantitative studies as a basis for inference regarding 
relative differences depends greatly on knowledge of the individual's 
previous experience. If allowance is made for the irregular rate of 
mental development, the effect of laboratory conditions, and the 
imperfections of scales now in use, a wide variety of performance 
tests may indicate the probable remoteness or span of interest,* the 
extent of development or genetic stage of interest, and also those 
activities best suited to specific abilities in which interest is normally 
most intense. In short, it appears that diagnosis of interests as 
described, requires the use of standard tests to determine capabilities, 
the widest practicable observation of behavior to determine relative 
factors, and adequate, progressive, and available records of such 
behavior for the guidance of all concerned. 

The attempt to relate phenomena of interest to specific educa- 
tional controls with anj^ degree of precision requires that the nature 
and effects of both be scientifically described. Quantitative measure- 
ment and classification of interest lies beyond all present hope, yet 
scientific description of various stimuli and of their apparent effects 
upon behavior under standardized conditions is not only possible 
but is essential to the confirmation and intelligent use of theories 
herein considered. The Chapman and Feeler experiment, noted 
in the first chapter of this article, is typical of many studies leading 

' H. C. Link: "Employment Psychology/' p. 208. 

- School Review, May, 1920. 

' H. C. Link, op. cit., p. 332 gives reasons for this reduction of error; L. M. Ter- 
raan: "inteIHgence of School Children," pp. 57ff. mentions certain rather ques- 
tionable correlations. 

* cf. E. K. Fretwell: A Study in Educational Prognosis. Teachers' Col. Cant., 
No. 99, p. 303. 



Studij of Interest in Education 49 

to this end whose conclusions to date are nevertheless too fragmentary 
to serve as corroborative evidence. The same is in general true of 
educational controls. By analogy with a principle of industrial 
efficiency, which requires that the best means of arriving at standard 
attainments should be adopted as standard operations and consis- 
tently employed so far as standard conditions will permit/ education 
must extend its scientific description of various products to include 
•those processes by which under standard conditions each product 
is best attained.^ Otherwise it is difficult to see how principles of 
method can be transferred from educational theory to educational 
fact. It is not intended that these principles involved in efficient 
management of any enterprise should be applied to education in merely 
a figurative sense. Their actual application becomes evident when 
the pupil takes the place of the industrial worker, who is guided by 
superiors in performing such operations as lead to various attainments 
determined by the aim. For the pupil these attainments comprise 
the various proficiencies or educational products that result from 
various operations in the process. The remainder of the discussion 
in developing this point of view is confined to a purely theoretical 
account of motivation in terms previously used. 

The term motivation may here be understood to mean the stimu- 
lus to such self-activity under prescribed conditions as tends to modify 
later activity in a desired direction. A most superficial view of the 
process reveals the fact that this stimulus may come either from the 
conditions themselves, or from outsidCj or from both. In terms of 
educational theory, the prescribed conditions may be identified with 
course of study and the outside stimulus with method. To the same 
degree that the standard conditions and standard operations of 
industrial efficiency are both responsible for the standard attainment, 
both course of study and method are involved in the educational 
product. Together these constitute the motivating process with 
which we are chiefly concerned, yet by the theoretical distinction 
each may be considered separately. The product is the cross section 

' cf. H. Emerson: "Twelve Principles of EflSciency," Chap. XII and H. Upde- 
graff: "Scientific Management in Educational Administration," Univ. of Penna. 
Free Lectures, 1913-14, pp. 350-64, whose current research is pioneer work in this 
field. The term "standardization " as applied to educational method and products 
is here used in the industrial and not in the statistical sense. It means simply 
the selection and maintenance of the best method, product, etc. under specified 
conditions. 

' As advocated by Rugg, op. cit., p. 340. 



50 An Approach to the Sijnthetic 

of the process, which like the standard attainment is best defined 
in terms of process. This means that neither knowledge, interest, 
nor action should alone constitute the desired product, but that all 
three with their many implications should be taken into account so 
far as may be practicable. 

As the standard conditions of efficient enterprise are made as 
favorable as possible with reference to the particular aim, the course 
of study should likewise be determined by the educational aim, or 
in other words by the needs of the individual pupil. Such needs as 
typical of large groups in various conditions of modern society have 
been analyzed from many different standpoints.^ The various aims 
resulting from such analysis can in general be said to seek a happy 
compromise between certain competencies which society demands 
as a condition of full membership in the social order and the fullest 
development of the individual's native endowment. This mutual 
development of individual and social traits should then result so far 
as possible from the pupil's contact with the situations which com- 
prise the course of study. The effectiveness of a particular situation 
to afford such development in the individual case is the criterion for 
its selection. 

It is evident that in order to estimate this effectiveness one must 
anticipate those individual and social traits that are most valuable 
in the child's later experience. To the degree in which his behavior 
under present conditions is normal one may closely predict the later 
conditions by analogy with the experience of others whose behavior 
was similar at the same stage of development. By a preliminary 
statement this experience was shown roughly to comprise feeling and 
interest in a situation, action in such interest, and knowledge of the 
effects of such action. The comparison of present with probable 
future experience involved in selecting the effective course of study 
should then make due allowance for each element; and each, we have 
said, must also appear in the standard attainment or product by 
which the efficiency of both course of study and method is 
measured. 

The departure of traditional practice from this ideal is largely 
explained by a fallacy of Herbartian psychology which regarded 

1 e.g. J. T. Bobbitt: " The Curriculum." 
J. & E. Dewey: "Schools of Tomorrow." 

A. D. Yocum: The Determinants of the Course of Study. N. E. A. Proc, 1914. 
Nat. Soc. for Study of Education, 16th, 17th, and 19th Year Books, Part I. 



Study of Interest in Education ' 51 

ideas or knowledge as the sufficient explanation of interest. Hence 
to determine the traditional "text-book" course of study the educa- 
tor had merely to tabulate the useful forms of knowledge/ take stock 
of the pupil's acquirement of each, and prescribe accordingly. In 
so doing he ignored the fact that analysis of residual knowledge is 
not analysis of behavior. Command of mere facts in no way ensures 
a useful attitude regarding them nor the probability of useful action 
as a result. Approaching the course of study from the opposite angle 
some "schools of tomorrow" err to the other extreme. Adapting 
the teaching situation to the tendencies of individual behavior not 
infrequently leads to reliance upon mere caprice. The integrat- 
ing factor is minimized and the differentiating factor is supreme. 
Hence "problem-project" situations are only efficient to the degree 
that the pupil's action involves progressive standard attainments 
which apply to his case and which so far as possible are systemati- 
cally planned in advance. Thanks to the present broadcast experi- 
ment such problem courses are rapidly becoming highly efficient in 
this respect. Yet to harmonize these two criteria — the universal 
knowledge requirement on the one hand and expression of individual 
interest on the other — there is need for the truly scientific analysis 
of behavior that shall bring all important factors of experience into 
proper perspective and that shall define these factors in terms of 
genetic development. The more quantitative such definition becomes, 
the more directly useful is it in determining the course of study. 
The greatest contribution of such analysis must consist in the more 
precise definition of aim that permits definition of standard attain- 
ments in terms of operations. 

This outline of the problem may serve to justify the synthetic 
study of interest as one means of approach. As described in the 
theoretical terms of foregoing chapters such study thoroughly pursued 
must do much to standardize efficient educational procedure, since its 
actual completion implies the closer relation of the learning process 
to specific educational controls. The nature of that interest in which 
useful action is taken and useful knowledge acquired might then serve 
more largely to determine the individual course of study. Pending 
such conclusive experiment the theoretical criteria for selection of 
teaching situations must include the following: (a) relative differ- 
ences, i.e. inference from the pupil's reactions as to the prevailing 
trends of interest; (6) absolute differences, i.e. inference from various 

^ As proposed most scientifically by Bobbitt, op. cit. 



52 An A pproach to the Synthetic 

painstaking achievements as to the capacity for its realization under 
specific conditions; (c) inference from the experience of adults simi- 
larly endowed in the above respects as to the effects of such reali- 
zation; and (d) inference from society at large as to the inevitable 
recurron(;e and applicability of the situation in later life for all 
individuals. 

The ideal course of study consisting entirely of such situations 
as are fully adapted to individual needs must render the teacher 
superfluous. The demand for external motivation decreases as 
this intrinsic efficiency is approached. Thus while there is no clear 
difference in theory between course of study and method from the 
standpoint of motivation, the practical nonexistence of the ideal 
situation refers motivation almost entirely to method. In practice 
the function of content is simply to provide occasion for such experi- 
ence as b(^havior shows to b(! most ilesirabh; at a given time. The 
functions of method are, essentially, (a) to promote sufficient activity 
to acquire this necessary experience;, (6) to direct this experience 
toward various desirable ends, and (c) to cause each of these ends to 
be pursued upon ai)propi'iate future o(!casions. Thus the ideal 
method is almost e(|ually independent of content, since almost any 
situation may provide; occasion for sonu; useful experience. 

This relation of content to method and the later application of 
efficiency principles to both may be clarified by a random illustration 
of the learning process. We may suppose each of the primary types 
of interest to be represented by a vapid femme-du-monde, a cub- 
reporter, and a professor of dramatic literature, — all attending a 
production of a racy prol)lem play. If the apperceptions of each are 
true to type, one may expect the lady to yield readily to intrinsic 
absorption in the lure of the matinee idol. The reporter is restrained 
from sucli inchilgence by the practical demands of his write-up. The 
professor from the depths of his dramaturgy may properly inquire — 
'how can such trash be written?' It is evident that behavior is 
sufficiently motivated by the content in the sense that a fair amount 
of activity results in each case. It is equally evident that other 
content might better suit the needs of the three individuals. Yet in 
selecting this othen- content the educator is greatly assisted by study 
of each response to the play, which may stand for any characteristic 
behavior. The aliove criteria for selection of course of study here 
apply. 'IMu' supi)lementary function of method involves the direc- 
tion of this a(;tivity to tlie end most useful for the individual: the 



Study of Interest in Education 53 

lady's riot of feeling must be directed to certain useful and recurrent 
aspects of the situation; the reporter's concentration upon superfi- 
cial features affecting him alone should admit some of the professor's 
social theory; while the professor, if not fully attained, may well 
profit by something of the other two. His interpretation of catharsis 
may doubtless be enriched by attention to the applause of the box- 
party: theoretical becomes rational interest. It is this normal 
variation from personal impulse through the socially obvious to the 
socially rational which marks the degrees of the learning process. 
Since the higher degrees of this process are most readily distin- 
guished from the lower by the useful knowledge acquired, progress 
is customarily judged by attainments in knowledge alone. Five such 
degrees of retention are clearly distinguished by Yocum^ as forgotten 
knowledge, barely retained, many-sided (or depending upon various 
occasions for revival), definite, and generally applicable. Hence ..the 
formal steps of instruction, the plan of text-books, and methods of 
instruction in general have conformed to this sequence. Such stand- 
ard attainments as these, whether applied to the course of study 
as a whole or to a particular subject or part of a subject, are ineffi- 
cient when they disregard other elements essential in the process. The 
standard operations,^ or methods of reaching such attainments, are 
consequently inadequate also. To improve the efficiency of standard 
methods one must so revise the standard attainments that together 
these shall constitute a fuller realization of aim. We have noted that 
this aim involves the reciprocal functions of interest and knowledge. 
Inadequacy of useful knowledge, when recognized, is the source of 
new interest, and new interest the source of new knowledge. Hence 
the failure to realize expectations with regard to a situation marks 
the rise to a higher form of retention and a more adequate control.^ 
This relation suggests a theoretical correspondence between further- 
ance of interest and growth of knowledge by which the affective 
element may be included in the standard attainment and accordingly 
recognized in the standard operation. In terms previously defined 
these stages in the furtherance of interest may be distinguished as 
follows: First, interest in the present situation. Second, the interest 
expressed in the present situation finds expression in the idea of it. 
Third, interest in the idea includes ideas of similar situations de- 

' A. D. Yocum: "Culture, Discipline and Democracy," pp. 31fT. 
^ cf. H. Emerson, op. ciL, Chap. XII. 
■' W. Mitchell, op. cit., p. 312. 



54 An Approach to the Synthetic 

manding the same sort of behavior because appealing to the same 
type of interest. This stage might be reached when the discovery of 
pleasure in poetry leads to a similar discovery in music, or where 
success in one undertaking inspires success in others, or when cognitive 
interest in a particular field leads to deeper respect for scholarship in 
general. Fourth, activity in one type of interest becomes habitual 
in particular situations. Fifth, habitual expression becomes socialized, 
and the nature of the interest expressed is determined by the social re- 
quirements of the situation; hence behavior is at all points in closest 
conformity with reality. The scale of interest is probably no more 
and no less useful than the scale of retention except in so far as the 
attainment of each degree is less readily determined. It has perhaps 
the advantage of being unsuited to group apphcation, and of directing 
the teacher's attention to the individual response. 

If regarded as tentative standard attainments, these degrees of 
knowledge and of interest combined must determine the operation 
to be standardized. Those particular operations or methods leading 
most directly to the attainment desired should be selected for appli- 
cation at various stages of the process. Hence on the basis of these 
progressive attainments it should be possible to distinguish the 
general functions of method in motivation which have been selected 
upon purely logical grounds; namely, the stimulation of activity, 
its direction toward desired ends, and its reproduction upon appro- 
priate occasions. Each of these functions may be outlined in turn 
to suggest varieties of interest involved in each attainment and 
consequently in the process as a whole. ^ 

Whether considered genetically or as appUed to all learning, the 
first three attainments may be related to the first function, — mere 
stimulation of activity. Before interest in a particular form of experi- 
ence has become habitual and knowledge of it has become definite, 
behavior is directed toward the situation as an end in itself. Such 
behavior is largely experimental until the expectations regarding 
such situations have been justified by experience and their fulfilment 
is taken-for-granted. This experimental aspect of behavior suggests 
that progress through the first three attainments is motivated by 
expression of instinctive interest. The fact of such expression insures 
activity of some sort, and progress from one to another of these 

" cf. A. D. Yocum, N.E. A. Proceedings, 1914, pp. 223-235, for an analysis of 
method in terms of knowledge attainments with which this treatment in terms 
of interest closely agrees. 



study of Interest in Education 55 

attainments results from the increasing scope of activity as the types 
of instinctive interest evolve. 

All activity is stimulated at first by interest in the mere situation 
which has no meaning other than its appeal to purely intrinsic interest. 
The force of this appeal is apparent in all forms of behavior in that 
things nearer sense are always the more influential.^ In later expres- 
sion attention varies with interest, but interest does not vary with 
attention. Interest in the mere situation does vary with attention 
inasmuch as to captivate attention is to motivate activity. The 
operations for producing involuntary attention as suggested by the 
varieties of purely intrinsic interest are familiar from daily obser- 
vation. They consist in various sensory stimuli whose intensity is 
explained by such qualities as novelty, contrast, rhythm, movement, 
et al. Organic factors cause attention to persist, through none save 
the motor can be stimulated directly. The more the situation meets 
an instinctive want, the longer is the series of movements attended 
to. The intensity of stimulus should, however, be neither too high 
nor too low; otherwise it fails to take effect.^ The great variety of 
such controls, as used in reaction time experiments, for example, 
suggest many means of producing some activity in any situation. 
The effect of such activity is mere contact with prepared conditions 
to which meaning may later be given. 

Interest in the idea or meaning of the situation is essentially practi- 
cal. The situation, though still an end in itself, is utiUzed. Hence 
activity is motivated by such instinctive interest as recognizes in 
the situation an occasion for achievement. To be recognized at all 
some knowledge of the situation must have been acquired from a 
former contact with it, but ignorance of this knowledge may result 
either from lack of interest or from too much interest beyond control. 
In the former case the problem of motivation is to ally the situation 
with what does have interest, which means, in the last analysis, with 
pleasant or painful consequences. This is done by emphasizing the 
significant elements of the situation and its consequence so that 
each may serve as a sign. By bringing the signs frequently together 
a cognitive interest is developed which may become practical if the 
consequence is sufficiently agreeable. The method is the same 
when interest is excessive and the situation has no clear meaning. 

• cf. G. Wallas: "Human Nature in Politics," p. 106. 

2 See J. Adams' helpful description of "vanishing point" and "gaping point," 
'Exposition and Illustration in Teaching," p. 160. 



56 An Approach to the Synthetic 

The absorbing situation must be related to the consequence until the 
meaning becomes conscious. When meaning is thus acquired the 
situation appeals to practical interest. By presenting difficulties 
in the situation the teacher reveals the inadequacy of this meaning 
or of other beliefs taken-for-granted.^ Hence interest in seeking 
progressively to overcome these difficulties finds expression in other 
aggressive forms, such as pursuit, rivalry et al., and thereby develops 
characteristic behavior toward similar situations. The operations leading 
to the second attainment must therefore present problematic situations 
containing such qualities as appeal to these varieties of interest. 

The development of interest from one situation to others like it 
results largely from gratification of curiosity. The interest may 
therefore be termed cognitive, though other elements as always are 
included. Recognition of a common quality in new and old situations 
leads to expectancy of the same consequence that followed the former 
experience and hence to reproduction of the same activity. The 
sense of achievement in the sound of an electric bell is expected to 
follow the pressing of an electric light button. Hence curiosity is a 
powerful factor in the unification of experience. Here as elsewhere 
the method of motivation, or operation to be standardized, consists 
in devising a problem which appeals as worth while and which leads 
to more effective expression in each type of interest. While this 
end is partly reached by merely increasing the variety of experience 
and so revealing the inadequacy of present learning, it is more directly 
reached by the pupil's independent thought. In either case the new 
adjustment must be so challenged as to require reflection upon its 
value. Such reflection implies expression of similar interests in similar 
situations and possession of "many-sided" knowledge which together 
constitute the third attainment. 

The increasing role of social influences at approximately this 
stage of the process involves a new function of method, — the direction 
of activity in all situations toward certain useful ends. As implied 
by the fourth attainment to which this activity leads, certain situa- 
tions are taken-for-granted and so become the means by which habi- 
tual interests are realized. Other situations less directly related to these 
interests are still regarded as ends in themselves. Hence this distinc- 
tion between means and ends observes the distinction previously 
made between extrinsic and intrinsic interests. The former express 
an aggressive attitude toward situations that may serve more remote 

1 cf. W. Mitchell, op. ciL, p. 292. 



Study of Interest in Education 57 

personal ends, whether the prevailing interest be intrinsic, practical 
or rational. The latter express an adaptive attitude toward the 
nature of the situation, whether this is of interest in a moral or theo- 
retical aspect. 

Such methods as may be standardized to motivate this at- 
tainment of habitual interest must be selected entirely by individual 
diagnosis. No general prescription can possibly prove effective. 
Yet the most obvious implications of the above analysis may help 
to interpret such diagnosis in selection of method. One such impli- 
cation is that the more vigorous tendencies revealed by diagnosis 
should be directed toward ends that can be profitably realized in the 
given environment. A curriculum consisting of prescribed, experi- 
mental, and elective courses^ does much to indicate the nature of 
these tendencies^ and the particular field to be regarded as the pupil's 
specialty. This should naturally be the field in which interest and 
ability coincide. Predominant interest in aesthetic appreciation, 
in rivalry, or in intellectual curiosity, as expressed by various individu- 
als in various school activities, should determine both the teacher's 
means of approach and the individual's status in the group. Interests 
most closely identified with the self should when possible be directly 
furthered by such success as will lead to more remote realizations. 
This success the teacher can regulate by assigning problems more or 
less difficult so as to preserve a justifiable feeling of superiority in 
the special field. Whether the specialty lie in public speaking, or 
in wood-work, or in the operation of moving picture machines, this 
fact will determine the motivation of other activity so far as common 
elements are actually present. While the particular interest thus 
rendered habitual is not significant, some special interest should be 
successfully expressed. When once this successful expression has 
become habitual, the interest may seek more distant and more useful 
ends. Very frequently the reluctance to learn from elders causes 
indifference to all activities. This can perhaps best be overcome by 
obtaining influence over leaders of group and by such laboratory 
methods as give the pupil the advantage of the teacher regarding 
certain facts.^ When problems can be thus rationalized in terms of 

' e.g. as described by C. R. Henderson, Prin. of Educ, p. 492. 

^ Best distinguished perhaps by type of interest as suggested by W. H. Kil- 
patrick, N. E. A. Proceedings, 1918, pp. 528ff. 

' cj. W. J. McCallister: An Experiment in Use of the Reference Library. 
Journal of Experimental Pedagogy, (London), March, 1917. 



58 An Approach, to the Synthetic 

extrinsic interest, the operation is likely to be efficient. If the unpleas- 
antness of filthy streets can motivate an intelligent interest in slums, 
for example, instruction in civics is greatly economized. 

The extent to which this direct motivation is possible depends of 
course upon l)oth pupil and teacher. When the pupil's aggressive 
interests are sufficiently intense and varied, the teacher may have 
enough ingeimity to reveal social ends in each spontaneous activity. 
Yet the limits of human resourcefulness are such that direct motiva- 
tion of preparatory learning is often wasteful. As Klapper says, 
"the creation of the (sonditions that would make motive arise would 
produce an artificiality similar to learning l)ecausc of authority." 
While final acceptance of this view must depend on the success of 
many current experiments which rely entirely upon direct motivation, 
it is sui)p()rted by former explanation of intrinsic social interests. 
Adaptation to novel situations is usually the immediate effect of 
authority. Hence the operation which best renders these adaptive 
interests habitual involves a certain amount of coercion. Activity 
should accordingly be directed by mediate interest which bears the 
closest relation to the end proposed. Judged simply as a means of 
producing temporary conformity the birch is the most effective appeal 
to this interest. Its inefficiency as a means of moral instruction lies 
in the resulting feeling of inferiority which negates the cooperative 
attitude upon which healthy moral interest must depend. Hence the 
efficient operation by which habitual intrinsic interests are attained 
would logically consist in the maintenance of esprit de corps. Such 
means of directing interest to the demands of various social situations 
may well include forms of drill and review where each is motivated so 
far as possible l)y mediate interest in success or in novelty of presentation.^ 

The third function of method, which involves the final attain- 
ment of the process, is concerned with the appropriate expression of 
both extrinsic and intrinsic interests. Both must be adjusted to the 
occasion, i.e. to reality. To this end motivation nmst relj^ upon the 
instinctive tendency to compensate for undue expression of either. 
The educator's problem is to cultivate standards of conduct that 
shall prevent both the exploitation of easy situations and the complete 
surrender to others. Each of these attitudes leads to feelings of 
inferiority; -since gratification of selfish impulse meets the disapproval 
of the group, and repression of legitimate interests brings the sense 

' qf. means of such motivation by standardized tests. W. S. Monroe: " Meas- 
uring the Results of Teaching," p. 79 ct passim. 



Study of Interest in Education 59 

of failure. Honoc the effect of instinctive compensation is to displace 
this actual inferiority by the illusion of success. Though the educa- 
tional process is necessarily the same, it is possible so to modify the 
resistance that success in some line of endeavor may become actual 
and so give rise to legitimate feelings of social superiority. The value 
of this procedure depends upon the degree to which realization of 
aggressive interests involves expression of adaptive interests also, 
and vice versa. Whether strictly personal ends are sought in bodily 
comfort or social ends in community service, the attainment of each 
should require both aggressive action and deference to social sanc- 
tions. Otherwise the response is determined largely by the immediate 
situation and behavior becomes aimless. By the fullest expres- 
sion of both attitudes in each situation, the whole of experience is 
coordinated and directed toward certain ends more or less remote. 
Hence it follows that the more remote the end, the longer becomes 
the series of situations through which interest is progressively trans- 
ferred and the more completely is this interest adjusted to reality. 

Otherwise stated, the last of the five attainments proposed involves 
an operation by which interest is transferred from one to as many 
situations as possible. Hence the process consists in the formation 
of ideals. In no other educational product is this phenomenon of 
transfer clearly apparent.' In solving a problem in arithmetic, in 
kicking a field goal, or in satisfying an importunate friend interest 
may well be confined to the immediate occasion. Yet when such 
interest seeks the remote ends of scholarship, sportsmanship, or 
generosity, its expression is involved in a number of situations that 
are normally distributed with regard to resistance offered. The 
ideal of school popularity may well include three. Hence an 
end remote enough to constitute an ideal is best approached by 
activity which expresses both extrinsic and intrinsic interests in various 
situations. The expression of both may be regulated by increasing 
or decreasing the difficulty of the pupil's problems in such manner 
as to assist the natural process of compensation. The easy problem 
fosters aggressive interest and sustains the more remote realization. 
The difficult problem fosters adaptive interests and demands closer 
contact with reaUty. On this account the diffidence of the pupil too 
guarded in his replies should be overcome by such success as will 
increase his social status. The assurance of the excessively "origi- 
nal" pupil should be met by such failure as will compel a wider grasp 

' cf. Ruediger, Prin. of Educ, pp. 1 12(1. 



60 An Approach to the Synthetic 

of reality. Since the mass of the school population distributed 
between these extremes is composed of individuals requiring adjust- 
ment on one side or the other or on both, the operation can be stand- 
ardized only in so far as the degree of adjustment is approximately 
the same for different individuals at various stages of development. 

While the sequence of these theoretical attainments and of the 
operations leading to each is intended to follow the course of normal 
genetic development, it is obvious that such uniform progress along 
varied lines of experience is conceivable only in theory. As applied 
to the individual pupil, the processes here related to sucessive attain- 
ments must occur simultaneously as different attainments are 
reached in various fields of endeavor. Yet even in maturity the 
development of interest in a new field proceeds from the specific 
situation to the whole of experience, which may justify the theoretical 
sequence to some degree. 

The hope for standard methods of directing l^ehavior to the most 
useful development of individual differences, depends for fulfilment 
upon quantitative description. While as yet few if any "absolute" 
differences have been adequately described in quantitative terms, 
it is too soon to predict that correlations between absolute and relative 
differences may not in time be established which will define the latter 
more precisely. Progress is most tangible within the field of quanti- 
tative experiment. Qualitative analysis, by reason of the personal 
equation and the number of variables involved, is ever open to ques- 
tion. Yet the belief is legitimate that some such index of relative 
differences as may be afforded by a synthetic study of interest may 
hasten the convergence of the two methods of approach. Such study 
should serve both to stimulate educational research by the contri- 
bution of hopeful theory and to standardize intelligent practice as 
such theory is confirmed. 

Conclusions 

1. The genetic development of interest as observable in groups 
provides a basis for standard principles of educational method. When 
applied to the results of individual diagnosis, these principles effect 
a useful compromise between traditional methods based on theore- 
tical analysis of socially useful knowledge and experimental methods 
based on the pupil's preferences or other superficial analysis of behavior. 

2. Such principles are useful in selecting cumulative teaching 
situations or the course of study in so far as typical affective reactions 



Study of Interest in Ediication 61 

to particular qualities of a given situation are identified with the pupil's 
progressive attainments in ideas, skills, habits, etc. These situations 
may be standardized to the degree that such attainments can be 
precisely described in terms of process. 

3. Methods of motivating the learning process may be stand- 
ardized .to the degree in which the tj^pical interests of various pupils 
are uniform at approximately the same stage of development. Such 
uniformity may be assisted by controlling environmental conditions 
and by grouping with respect to abilities determined by performance 
tests. 



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